Well, I made it through.

Anesthesiologist stabbed me four times in the damn port trying to start an IV and had to eventually start on the old fashioned way.  Otherwise, uneventful.   I will find out the results in a week.

Evidently, when coming out of anesthesia, I asked the doctor "did you find Jimmy Hoffa up there?"

Good stuff!   Have a good weekend, all.

I survived the night, and why I explained Che Guevara to my 10-year old

So, first thing's first, I'm alive.  All in all, it was bad but not THAT bad.  The reality is, all the "cleansing action" induced by 10 days worth of laxative ingested in a two hour period wasn't any worse than the pre-Vegas GI problems I had, and was probably LESS severe.  So the prep for today's diagnostic wasn't as bad as the problem which the diagnostic is attempting to uncover.

Hurray.  I guess.

I heard from one helpful commenter that her husband had an issue which turned out to be lymphocytic colitis.  Doesn't sound fun.  However the treatment was testosterone and it went away; meanwhile, I am getting testosterone already.

Also on yesterday's call, I asked Dr. RO (head of MM at MD Anderson) if he had experience with post-transplant patients having GI damage and he said that it can happen and he would be concerned with amyloidosis -- which I'd heard bandied about a lot as a related condition to MM but never researched.  It's the body's inability to absorb protein and it can cause the GI problems I've got.  Now, I *have* to assume UAMS would test for this...and yet nobody brought it up in my previous "what's up with all this diarrhea" conversations?

They say two data points equals a trend.  So the trendline here is there could be something materially wrong.  Or maybe it's nothing.  Who knows.  But it's enough to make me a little trepidatious.  It's enough to make me interested in the outcome of these tests.

Four hours and counting to the procedure...and I'm a teensy bit hungry.  I ingested half a bottle of gatorade throughout the night to replace some electrolytes, which means I took in about 100 calories yesterday.  Truth be told, it's manageable.  Although I did have dreams about food -- two of them, actually.  And the caffeine headache is a now a bit of a nuisance, since I'm in the four-hour pre-procedure window where I'm not allowed to drink anything either.  

So on to the levity.  Anticipating the worst from last night's circus act, I got out of my work clothes when I returned from the office and donned something comfortable -- sweatpants and a T-shirt that I normally wouldn't wear.  Last night's was a hilarious one that I bought one time after some of that gin that I referred to yesterday.  Aaah, tipsy online shopping, where we would be without you?

Hilarious, right?  : )

Not that I'm some right-wing nut, but after all, this guy was a mass murderer and people are starving in North Korea.  Kim Jung Un, if you are reading this: YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK.  PUT DOWN THE MISSILES AND PLAY NICE WITH THE OTHER KIDS.   Wooly-eyed college students might benefit from thinking about this slogan, too.

Anyhow, my daughter was standing in front of me in the kitchen and it dawned on me that she was reading this.  So I found myself having to try to offer simplified explanations of who the man was and what communism is and the irony of the T-shirt and the reason the slogan was funny given that recurring idiom.  She got absolutely none of this.  But, darling girl that she is, when she learned that I was having tummy trouble she said "that's killing me...that makes 100 million and one."

What a sweetheart! :)