00:00 Also...
00:02 I don't know.
00:05 Hey besties, come with me for a very realistic day recovering from my bone marrow transplant.
00:09 I had one of these core power shakes for breakfast because ketone radiation side effects have really been hitting and I literally cannot get
00:14 solid food down. Throat and mouth sores have been literally insane
00:17 and I had to record this two days late because I actually couldn't speak. Had my meds and then immediately got nauseous
00:22 I had my cute little bark bag with me. Got some nausea and pain meds.
00:25 I know that I post a lot of positive content
00:27 but I kind of wanted to show y'all kind of what a real day looks like and also kind of why I haven't been posting
00:32 as much recently. I forced myself out of bed, went on my silly little walk. Also,
00:36 Hall of Fame update coming soon. And the cherry on top of all these side effects is that my hair is also starting to fall
00:41 out in literal chunks. You think it'd be easier the second time it happens, but it really never does get easier.
00:45 At this point the pain had gotten so bad
00:47 they gave me something called a patient controlled pain pump where basically it's just a continuous stream of dilaudid through my IV
00:52 and then if I click a button I get an extra dose of dilaudid that also comes through my IV.
00:56 Highly recommend. This has made it so much easier to control my pain. Lunch was a strawberry banana protein smoothie.
01:01 I couldn't really finish the whole thing because I was too nauseous and my mouth was still hurting,
01:04 but it was pretty good.
01:05 And then I took a nap, probably like my fourth one of the day because all my medications make me sleepy and the radiation
01:09 also made me really really sleepy. And then Krishna came over to visit. Look at him fixing up my little Roku for me.
01:14 Sometimes I just love men because you can just turn your brain off with them. Like, oh,
01:17 I don't feel like figuring out how to set up my Roku. That's okay. He'll figure it out.
01:20 Here's nap like 28. That's only probably a slight exaggeration, honestly.
01:24 And then I got nauseous again. Honestly,
01:26 I feel like all my horrific hangovers in college prepared me for the after effects of radiation.
01:30 I really didn't have it in me to go on another walk, so my dad and I watched a few episodes of Ghosts.
01:35 And then it was time for dinner. I ordered some solid food because I was trying to be optimistic,
01:38 but I still couldn't get it down.
01:39 So I just ended up eating an orange popsicle on Italian ice. Honestly, can't complain.
01:43 And then you'd think the universe would give me a calm ending to the day, right?
01:47 But no, the universe said, "Fuck you," and I went into SBT. Basically,
01:50 my body was so stressed out from the radiation and chemo, my heart rate shot up into the 190s.
01:53 They were only able to get it back down by using a medication that literally stops my heart for a millisecond and then restarts it again.
01:59 Even though it's happened to me before, it was still super stressful,
02:01 and I also felt like a robot with all these wires coming out of me. And then the day was finally over. Good night.
02:06 I'm officially a chimera, which is what you call someone with two different sets of DNA within their body.
02:10 So for me, I have my brother's DNA in my blood and my own DNA everywhere else.
02:14 In about three to six months, my blood type will change completely to his. For a little while there,
02:19 I'll actually have two blood types, mine and my brother's.
02:22 So I got this question a lot about the blood transfusions. And so while I have two different blood types,
02:27 they would have to do a type and screen test on me to see which blood type is kind of more
02:32 dominant, and that's the blood they would transfuse me with.
02:34 But for the rest of my life, if they ever test the DNA in my blood,
02:37 it'll actually be my brother's DNA that shows up, not mine. And so this actually makes it really complicated for like,
02:43 crime investigations. Like, if I committed a crime and my blood was left on the scene and they did a DNA test on it,
02:51 it would be my brother that would get accused of the crime, not me, because it'd be his DNA that showed up.
02:57 Not saying I want to commit a crime, but if I ever did.
02:59 So some partial results from my last bone marrow biopsy just came back, and this might be one of the coolest,
03:05 weirdest side effects of getting a bone marrow transplant. TLDR, the DNA in my blood is now completely male.
03:11 So as you can see, they ran a chromosome analysis report on the DNA in my blood cells,
03:16 and the summary showed that I have a normal
03:20 male karyotype, meaning that the chromosomes that they looked at in the lab are
03:25 identifiable of a male, not a female. Which makes sense,
03:29 and it's a good thing, because it means my brother's cells have engrafted genetically into my bone marrow,
03:34 but it's still so wild to look at, because I'm a girl!
03:37 For reference, this is from two bone marrow biopsies ago,
03:40 and you can see that the chromosome analysis says that I am in fact female genetically in my blood.
03:45 Don't worry though, if you test me genetically anywhere else, like my hair, my skin, my nails,
03:50 I would still show up as female.
03:52 It's just in my blood, because that is now my little brother's DNA.
03:57 Anyway, science is so cool, and I am still a girl, I promise.
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