T+2 (Home Away from Home – Part 1)

For patients residing in eastern (and, I believe, northern Ontario), allogenic stem cell transplants (the type I am receiving) are delivered by The Ottawa Hospital’s Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (TCT) Program. This program operates from the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital.

The TCT program offers patients two options when undergoing a stem cell transplant: reside as an inpatient on “5 West” or enroll in the “day hospital” program. Since the day hospital program makes it possible for patients to sleep in their own beds each night, I jumped on the day hospital program for my first stem cell transplant. My wife, Tracy, agreed to support this arrangement.

While the opportunity to return home every day is very appealing, the reality, for us, turned out to be less attractive. As we live outside Ottawa, the one hour (in light traffic) car ride back and forth each day was tiring and, on some days, downright uncomfortable. The distance also made for several late night, nerve wracking rides to the hospital when I spiked a fever and needed to be seen by the TCT program team. In addition to the transportation challenges, I also ended up as an inpatient (twice) during the transplant process to monitor for possible complications.

Once we made the decision to proceed with a second transplant, Tracy and I quickly shifted our discussions on whether to go the day hospital route or check me into hospital as an inpatient. While the thought of being confined to a hospital room for a month or so filled me with dread, the challenges that we encountered trying to make day hospital work could not be overlooked. Equally important, a second stem cell transplant is riskier and the possibility of complications is higher.

It took several weeks to get my head around the thought of living on “5 West” for about a month. Eventually, I decided to do so. This decision was heavily influenced by several factors:

• Impact on Tracy. The emotional and physical toll that the caregiver role extracts is immense (I’ll explore my thoughts on this matter in a future blog post). Anything that I could do to make the transplant process easier on Tracy was a “win”.
• Peace of mind. The possibility of complications quite frankly scares the hell out of me. We had several scares during the first transplant process that resulted in mad dashes to the hospital. We both agreed that we could both do without the excitement and would both rest easier knowing that help was immediately available.
• Great staff. To a person, the healthcare professionals we encountered during my previous stay on “5 West” were empathetic, caring, and, clearly passionate about delivering exemplary care.

Tomorrow, I’ll describe life on “5 West”

Thanks for listening,

Mike