Today is admission day to City of Hope. The day started out at 8:00am with the third and dose of Palifermin, used to prevent mouth and throat sores from radiation and chemotherapy. It is a human keratinocyte growth factor that stimulates the growth of cells in the mouth and throat. At 9:00am, she was admitted to the 6th floor of City of Hope's Hospital. It's the top floor, or as I like to refer to it: The Penthouse Suite. This was quite a different experience from past chemotherapy admissions to the hospital. In the past, we sometimes waited for 3-4 hours for a bed in the hospital to open before she was admitted. This time, since she was admitted for a long term stay as a bone marrow patient, they scheduled her for admission immediately after the Palifermin appointment! I guess bone marrow transplant patients are at the top of the priority queue.City of Hope's rooms at Helford are nice. My mom's room consisted of two rooms. The first room is a staging area where visitors can wash their hands, put on masks and hang out. The second room is the patient's room. I hung out for the day, took a short nap and chatted with the nurses before heading home for the night.A completely random note: Duarte, CA was definitely affected by the Southern California fires. Both the outdoors and indoors of the hospital smelled like smoke. Evidently, City of Hope's ventilation system was not designed to effectively handle wildfire smoke from the outside. I brought a portable HEPA purifier for my mom's room to try and help with the smell. Hopefully they will clear it with their air filtration system soon.