Hi all, I know many of you have been asking for an update.
The past two weeks have been grueling to say the least, so much so that one of my nurses called the experience my personal Lenten desert.
Pre-transplant conditioning was roughest for me on the chemo days (a little over a week ago). In addition to the high dose chemotherapy, they gave me a drug called ATG as prophylaxis for graft vs host disease. The combination of those therapies on top of the six total body irradiation treatments created a perfect storm of sorts. I ended up losing more than 7 liters of fluid in less than 24 hours. Think about that people. That's THREE AND A HALF 2 liters of your favorite soda.
To combat the fluid loss, they put me on all sorts of IV medications that I cannot recall because I was so mentally and physically fatigued. Within the next 24 hours, I retained 20 extra lbs. of fluid from the IV meds.
Then it was transplant day, and my mom graciously kept many of you posted on Facebook when I just wasn't up to it. The photo above is the bag of marrow I received and that we are praying saves my life. It was huge (that's what she said) - over 1700 milliliters!
Since transplant day, the excess IV fluid has come off. This week I've been battling severe fatigue and no appetite. Nevertheless, I walk a few hallway laps every day and try to stay out of the hospital bed when I can. My doctors and nurses also let me cheat and see Caroline for about 20 minutes in the visitors lounge last Friday which really cheered me up.
For now, we're playing the waiting game (again). It's likely I'll be in the hospital for at least two more weeks as we wait for my blood counts to start climbing and showing us whether the transplant worked. Bone marrow unfortunately takes a bit longer than peripheral stem cells to engraft, so we may wait a bit longer than normal to see my counts rise. Until then, stay tuned and keep praying!
