time is psychological above all, blue and red tones in amsterdam

The last 48 hours felt endless for me, and painful as I had to do 2 days of leukapheresis as opposed to one. Yep, thursday I was meant to be "hooked" to the machine for 4 hours and that became a 6 hours endless this is not going to work kind of day. Long story short: the radiologist could not find the vein in leg so he tried the other and once that was in (a huge needle) that only worked for 2 hours.....so we were only able to collect half of the plasma required on Thursday.

So today we did a whole new 4 hour leukapheresis through the arms (you need a "in" and out" as you are connected to the machine that takes the lymphocytes from the blood) and that went smoothly! so today at 15:33 I am done with that. I am now eating a nice cake and having tea while I wait for the chevalier boys to get back so that I can squeeze them to death with kisses.

The cells were counted on tuesday were at 125 billion and growing, so the number should increase ("maybe" I shall beat your record Hein...) now they will go through the rapid expansion procedure and be feed the plasma for the next 2 weeks. I start Chemo the 15th and expect the transplant of TILs the 22nd or 23rd.

On another happier note, Alex and the boys have visited a ton of museums and walked around a LOT, the hospital was rather a non-event and they just commented that the cafeteria was expensive....

So, what shall my young children remember of this whole trip to Amsterdam you may wonder?????

1) the "blue" mayonaise they got with their Burger and fries at the Nemo museum

and

2) what, why and when the red light district and prostitution exists....so I might ask their school to have a go at that one!