I'm revaccinated, baby! Progress in kicking myeloma in the arse

I always hesitate getting too braggy when it comes to my quest of kicking cancer in the ass. That's because cancer is POWERFUL and SCARY. Nonetheless, on Friday, I got re-vaccinated! Since undergoing two stem cell transplants, I had the immunity of a newborn baby. And that means that all those vaccinations growing up were non-existent. Wiped out. A clean slate. So almost three years later, I marched off to my weekly maintenance appointment at Huntsman Cancer Institute.

First, before leaving home, I took my 20 mg of Dex, swallowed a ton of vitamins (all the vitamins in ONE of the slots)...


... Then I drove to Salt Lake City and stopped at my favorite place, Salt Lake Roasting Co, for my organic coffee and a delicious cranberry-oatmeal cookie (OMG I love that place), arrived at HCI where they weighed me (holding steady, yay!) and took my vitals, told me that my mammogram results were clean (whoohooo!), helped me schedule my first-ever colonoscopy for next month (that should be FUN), and accessed my port, which, turns out, BOTH SIDES were clogged up. Yep, I got poked twice in my dang port, barely got a "pink" blood return on one side-- just barely enough to give me my Velcade. This Friday I'll get an extra long appointment so that we can put anti blood-clotting stuff in them. But that's ok, it's just one tiny eentsy weentsy hiccup in my myeloma treatments. I can't even complain because I'm in REMISSION, I'm ALIVE, and I'm treated at Huntsman, a really FABULOUS place (for a cancer hospital).


And then I got all my new vaccines, five shots in total. So before I left, I got poked SEVEN times-- five vaccines and two in my port. And before I went to bed, I had to self-inject in my stomach so I won't get blood clots. Yes, that's EIGHT shots for me in ONE DAY. Good thing I'm over the whole "I hate needles" thing. I hardly wince anymore. That makes me... A WARRIOR!

I raced out of my appointment, drove all the way home, picked up Siena and her friend Gavin, and Morgan and three of her friends, and William, and we drove all the way back to the University of Utah for the state high school championship football game. American Fork High School lost, bummer, but it was a beautiful day and it was fun to gather up the whole gang and watch it.




After the game, William and I dropped off all the kids, went to an adult-only dinner party and met some new people, and then called it a night. Saturday, I hit up Bikram yoga in hopes that my very sore arms from the injections would loosen up (it worked) and later that night, watched Catching Fire. It was ok-- I wish they didn't split the last book up into two movies. This movie was dark and kind of dragged out. Ok, Catniss, we know you are desperately trying to SAVE PETA!!! Got it.

We were supposed to get snow this weekend and we barely got any. We did eat pre-Thanksgiving meals (turkey and the trimmings) and shopped. And now it's Thanksgiving week. And boy oh boy do I have so much to be grateful for. I will be writing up that post later this week.

Until then, here's to vaccines. It means I'm one more notch up on the SURVIVOR ladder. And for that, I'm so incredibly grateful.