When Life Hands You Lemons

Part III a multi-part series by Dan Hoyt

The Three Month Wait

The time between leaving the hospital and returning for my stem cell transplant was around three months. During that period, a lot happened to prepare me mentally and physically for the best possible outcome.

Returning home was surreal. It had only been 36 days, but so many things seemed different. I wasn’t the same person that had left just over a month before. I was down 20 pounds, was so much weaker, had no hair and still had a lot of brain fog, but I was so happy to be home. When we pulled into the driveway, I was welcomed with an amazing yard sign welcoming me. It was such a surprise, and seeing our puppy Nellie again made me so happy. My daughter Logan and her husband, Nick, came over to see me. I remember wanting to go out back on our patio since it was such a beautiful day, but they insisted we sit out front. At that point, I learned why. They had a welcome home parade arranged for me, and one by one cars drove by our home

Lemons - Part III

with family and friends honking their horns as they passed. I was completely surprised and really thrown back by just how many took time out of their day to welcome me home. It was a tearjerker moment if ever there was one.

I remember how happy I was to no longer be in the hospital, but with that came danger of infections. My hospital room was so clean and had state-of-the-art air purification systems with hepa fil - ters in the ceiling and a cleaning crew twice a day.

Nellie, who was then 15 weeks old, was so good 90 percent of the time, but she would get these crazy eyes going and what we called the zoomers. She still had razor-sharp puppy teeth and would jump at me with claws out. It made me laugh but was dangerous for a guy with white blood cell counts below 1. I remember it not seeming like a big deal ~ I’d wash my hands immediately after ~ but when I showed my nurses the marks and nicks Nellie had left on my hands, they were concerned, added additional antibiotics to my many meds and scolded me to be more careful. Eventually we calmed little Nellie down, and I had far fewer encounters with those sharp teeth.

Over the next three months, I had bloodwork twice a week locally in the Quad Cities and received blood transfusions at the local hospital when needed. I was home for barely a week, and they planned for another bone marrow biopsy and the start of my third round of chemo. I remember even then wanting to go back to work. My brain was motivated and ready, but my body just didn’t respond the way it needed to, so it had to wait.

During my first 36 days in the hospital, my weight fluctuated by more than 40 pounds. During one portion of the treatment, I was getting an increased amount of steroids to help fight my fevers and other complications. With that, I

Lemons - Part III retained over 20 pounds of water weight.

By the end, I lost all of that plus another 20 pounds. It was hard on my body to fluctuate this much in such a short period of time. I lost so much after those two rough rounds of chemo. I not only lost a lot of weight and hair, but I lost my taste for most things, though that didn’t help on the weight loss front. I remember grading things on how they tasted with percentages: something would taste 60 percent like it should, but for the most part the taste was not good. Sweet things tasted like they should, so that was nice, but not great for a diabetic. I had to continually reduce the sweet stuff to keep my blood sugar in check.

During that time, I was experiencing fevers and chills almost nightly. Taking two Tylenol always brought the fever back down, but my doctors and nurses wanted to make sure I didn’t have an infection, so they asked me not to take the Tylenol. The order was if my fever stayed at 100.4 or higher for over an hour to call the oncall doctors in Iowa City for guidance. Not taking the Tylenol did the trick, my fever stayed high, we called Iowa City and they told me to go to the local ER. This was June

Lemons - Part III

of 2021, and COVID was starting to get ugly again. We checked in to the ER and explained my current low blood counts to the staff, and they were able to get me to my own room quickly. The doctor had to continually call my doctors in Iowa City for instruction on what to do.

After a few hours, they decided to load me into an ambulance and ship me off to them. That was my first and hopefully last ride in an ambulance. It was loud, cold and bumpy. I was strapped in tightly and remember looking out the back window. They must have had the lights on, but no sirens. We were passing so many cars, it was crazy.

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You could see a few of them line up behind us, keeping up and catching that low aerodynamic resistance; it was a trip.

They admitted me to the hospital thinking I had an infection somewhere, so I spent four additional days in Iowa City until they let me go back home on heavy antibiotics.

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During my time in the hospital, I received two visits from my new transplant team. One was from a transplant coordinator who had the hard job of explaining the risks of getting a transplant. Not all survive, and there was a chance I would lose my life in the process. We had always been so positive about every step to that date, but it made us realize a positive attitude

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Lemons - Part III

could only get us so far and gave us our first dose of reality.

We also met my transplant doctor, Dr. Margarida Silverman, for the first time. She is the head of the blood and marrow transplant program at the University of Iowa. When we spoke to her, she was much more positive. She reassured us that my younger age, my attitude and an almost perfect match from my potential donor gave us a great chance of success. That left us feeling a bit better, but from that point forward, we were going into the situation with eyes wide open.

We did learn a little about my selected lifesaving donor. From the

19 possible donors, they narrowed down the search to three that had the best chance for a match. Each of those three had additional blood and tissue samples taken, and one final person had been chosen. I didn’t learn a lot about my future live saver, but I knew he had my same blood type, was a 35-year-old male and lived in Europe. Outside of that, all we knew was that he was the best match of the 19 and that his stem cells were going to save my life.

Over the next few months, a lot happened. I received two additional rounds of chemo, five in total, to get me ready for my transplant. Our sixth grandbaby, Ren, was born; she is Logan and Nick’s first baby. It was so nice having them so close. I had many visitors during that time from all over the country to see me and wish me well. My brother and sister-in-law, Pat and Toni, came for a visit from Plano, Texas. A great friend, Bill, from the Philadelphia area and his riding partners stopped on their Harleys for a visit. It was a huge surprise and made my week. One of his riding partners, Jessica, heard my story and signed up the next week on BeTheMatch.org to get on the donor list. She found out months later she was a match for someone and is still waiting on the final test results. Wouldn’t that be something? Out of this chance meeting during one of my patio visits, a stranger at the time heard my story, donated a sample of her DNA and now has a chance to save someone’s life like mine was saved. That

Lemons - Part III

family and friends from Dubuque, Iowa, the Chicagoland area and all over the Quad Cities took time to hang with us when the weather permitted. It meant a lot, and I will cherish those visits for many years to come.

is so special to me. Jessica is now a good Facebook friend, and I love following her story. Tim Dailing, my best friend from high school now living in Florida, stopped for a visit with his parents. Many other

On August 27, 2021, I entered the hospital to start my transplant treatments. I had nothing but faith in my doctors and nurses and remained positive throughout the journey. The next 30 days were going to be rough; I just didn’t realize how rough and how difficult they were going to be.

Next month - Is it good news?