Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Top 10 Good Things About BMT Isolation

Hi again everyone. Can't tell you what day of splendid isolation we're in because I refuse to count them off right now. I'll do that when I get out. For right now, I'm living in the moment, structuring each day around reading good books, replying to all of your lovely emails, watching some shows on Hulu.com and riding the in-room exercise bike while looking out at the Longfellow Bridge and beyond..

Since our Top 10 Isolation Movies was such
a hit (I'll announce the winner soon), I thought I'd offer a companion to the Top 10 Good Things About Chemo that I posted back in December. To wit, the top 10 good things about isolation for bone marrow transplants.

From the Home Office in Boston's West End:


10. My own version of the Slimfast diet: an egg for breakfast, a strawberry shake for lunch and a cappuccino shake for dinner.

9. Ability to provide friends with live, up-to-the minute traffic updates for the Red Line, Storrow Drive,
Memorial Drive and the upper deck of I-93.

8. Discovering that I can spend hours imagining the potential medical purpose of devices attached to the ceiling.









7. The thrill of deciding each morning which pair of Adidas track pants to wear—white, blue, black, blue/orange—and select a shirt that truly does them justice.


6. Opportunity to improve my soccer coaching skills by critiquing 8v8 and 6v6 games taking place 14 stories below. Bottom line: Roddy's team could crush any of them.

5. Morning Skype video calls with my brother remind me just how much worse I would look if I were covered in hair.







4. Shifting nurse assignments allow me to rework same tired material and get laughs anew, from people who are paid to humor me.

3. Safety precautions for visitors mean that I can imagine what it would be like to live in a place that required veils on men and women.







2. Charting daily fluid intake and urine output opens up a whole new world of opportunity for the obsessive compulsive in me.

1. Major Life Lesson: Duckboats are the only recession-proof business in Boston.

8 comments:

Daria said...

I love your post ... all the best to you!

Kieran said...

SO not fair - you are sick and yet YOU are adding value to MY life. This post was my first laugh out loud of my day (yes, the cats were startled).

I have GOT to work on being funnier, its only fair.....

Sending germ-free hugs.

Nora Mann said...

We could wave to each other or do pantomime---can you get to a window that looks up toward the statehouse....I could put a huge (and obnoxious???) sign in my window...

Seriously...wait, is that allowed...well seriously, your strength is this, and willingness to share is inspiring

Anonymous said...

LOVED the "Good Things" list. I could especially relate to 2!
I sounds like you are doing really well.
That is great news!!
Lynn from Louisville

Anonymous said...

2 more,late, movie additions-

Misery

Rear Window

Lynn from Louisville

Anonymous said...

Rear Window is a fantastic choice, especially with Kathleen as Grace Kelly!

Okay, I can't let the slights go unchallenged: I am not "covered in hair", I am hirsute. And devout...either Orthodox or Muslin, you tell me.

Steve looks like either Lex Luther or Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now!", which I know is unfair because he's got cancer and everything, but I claim brotherly license.

Anonymous said...

Muslin or Muslim... one's a fabric, the other is "the fabric of our lives."

Dennis Pyritz, RN said...

Great Blog! Hang in there. I am 5 years out from my BMT. I have added you to my blogroll - Cancer Blog Links at www.beingcancer.net
Take care, Dennis