The Initial Transfer.

The ambulance ride to HUP was interesting. First, it was my very first time in an ambulance, and they wouldn't let me go in a wheelchair because I was so weak, so I had to be strapped down to the bed and hauled up into the ambulance. Admittedly, as someone who has issues with claustrophobia and was already scared, this caused a problem and initiated a mild to severe panic attack. I tried to hold on to the memory of hugging my puppy, as that gives me comfort. Before the ambulance came to pick me up, I had asked if we could go home and get some things, see my puppy, and then drive down to HUP. But the issue was so urgent that I needed to be transferred right away. My dad ended up bringing my puppy down to the hospital to see me briefly before I left ('Just walk through with him like you're supposed to be here,' said the doctor.) and my pup instinctively knew that something was up. Mum put him up on my lap and he immediately started crying. Of course, this made me cry too because I kept saying, 'he doesn't want me, he doesn't want me.' Mum reassured me that he was just scared, but I started crying because I felt like my own pup didn't want to be near me and that maybe this was an omen that I was going to die. Silly, I know, but that's all that ran through my head.

When the ambulance finally arrived, the guys were really friendly - I think they could tell that I was scared beyond belief - and they tried to put my mind at ease, making jokes and being very gentle in their mannerisms. It lightened the mood, and my mum tried to take my mind off of things as well, but in the end, it was my humour that masked my pain and fear. I remarked that I would just pretend that I was Sleeping Beauty, waiting for my prince's kiss to release me from my bonds. That got a chuckle from my company, and one of the guys asked if they could use the line for other patients.

The ride took less than an hour, but my whole body hurt by the time I arrived at HUP. Those tiny boards you have to ride on really kill your butt and back. When they unloaded me from the ambulance, they took me through the ER entrance, but my mum had to go through security with all of her stuff. I had my phone on me, but there was no signal, so I wasn't able to text her about where I was. After waiting a few minutes in the ER entrance for her to appear, I started sweating and panicking even further, causing my heart rate to increase to the point that one EMT made me breathe while the other one went off to find my mum. He retrieved her and even helped to carry all of our stuff - it was really sweet of him. We were taken up to a room, which was a far walk from the ER entrance, on Rhoads 3. Once we got there, a team of doctors came in and said that they needed to do another bone marrow pull. I started to cry, remembering the pain of having a large needle shoved through my bone in order to extract the marrow. The reason why they do this test is to see if you have any cancer cells in your bone marrow, especially with cancer of the blood. Once you undergo treatment, another bone marrow pull is done, and if there are no cancer cells present, this is called molecular remission. Of course, while you hope that there's no cancer cells present in your bone marrow, you still have to undergo the bone marrow pull to check.

I had to get a second bone marrow pull upon my arrival at HUP because Bryn Mawr Hospital, where I initially was, was only able to check a limited amount of items. HUP has state-of-the-art equipment that allows for a closer reading of blood and marrow samples. This second pull is what allowed my doctors to realise that I actually had acute promyeloid leukemia (APML) and decide on a course of treatment. I'm not going to lie - bone marrow pulls suck like no other. It feels like an intense grinding in your hip region, and furthermore, even with the localised anaesthetic, you want to scream and move away from the pain. Of course, you need to be as still as possible so that nothing unexpected happens, so I opted instead for cursing and digging my nails into my mother's hand as she watched the procedure for a second time. I remember that she said I should keep it down and stop cursing because there were other people on the hall, but to be honest, I didn't give a fuck - I was in pain and I needed a release before I hauled off and tried to punch someone, injuring myself in the process.

I also had to have a PICC line placed in my arm in order to get the infusions that I needed. The PICC team came in, and they were very lovely ladies, which sort of put my mind at ease. I didn't really know what to expect. They numbed the area where they were going to place the PICC and they started to feed the line, when I started screaming in pain. Apparently, they had hit a nerve going in, and so what felt like liquid fire ran through my arm, down to my fingertips. I begged for them to stop, but the line had to be placed, so they tried a second time, this time getting it in and secured. For weeks after, my arm tingled, and I was unable to use it in the same way. Even wiping after going to the bathroom hurt to the point that I switched arms, angry and humiliated when I couldn't even clean myself. Eventually, the next time I tried to shower, I had to sit down on a shower chair with plastic wrapped around my PICC line and peripheral IVs so that it wouldn't get wet. I was wiped out, barely able to wash my hair, just wishing I could go back to bed, when I usually enjoy taking long, hot showers to let go of all of my pain.

Back in bed, I was hooked up to a machine and started on arsenic. The doctors went through the treatment plan with me (which I'll talk about in my next post), and I took my oral meds and tried to sleep.