Auto Transplant Days 8 - 11

Let's see if we can't get caught up today...

March 2, 2013: Day 8
OK, so the inflammation in my lower-left abdomen is causing some concern for the doctors. I had a CT scan of my abdomen done today (though I barfed up about 80% of the radioactive lemonade stuff), and what it shows is some inflammation of the walls of the large intestine near the colon, called typhilitis. The concern is that if a perforation (or hole) in the intestine wall happens, then there'll be gas and fecal matter in parts of the belly that have no way of fighting it...especially with my white blood cell count at ZERO. I have no immune system right now, no way of fighting off infection other that the antibiotic, antiviral and antifungal medicines they're pumping into me more than once a day. The bowel surgeon says it could put me into a life-and-death kind of situation. We need to ensure the inflammation doesn't get any worse, so I'm on "bowel rest." No food. No drink, except the bare minimum to take my pills. End of story. That's the news for today.

March 3, 2013: Day 9
Sunday morning, I was awoken a little after 6am and told I needed to have a platelets infusion. I figured that if it had to happen at THAT time of day, it must be important. As it turns out, the time of day was perfect, because after the hour and a half-long infusion was finally over, I was then told I also needed two units of red blood cells, as well. So, they hooked me up and we were back off to the races. After church was over, Noelle brought the kids and we hung out for a while, took a few laps around the unit, and took this picture:

I love how Isaiah is leaning on my leg. =0)

Michael and Abby both had very mild sniffles, so they kept their distance as best as they could to protect me. Poor kids. A couple of them were pretty excited to see the stuff hanging from my "IV tree" with blood in it from the transfusion. Anyway, after their visit of about an hour and a half, they took off and I received yet another infusion of platelets. Even though I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything right now, I was hungry all day. I don't know if that's a "good sign" or if it just means that I'm tired of not eating anything. I went to bed pretty early Sunday night.

March 4, 2013: Day 10

Ok, so yeah, I say Day 10, but it's really Day 14 in the hospital. I'm tired of so much about this whole thing...tired of not having energy...tired of not being able to eat what and when I want...tired of throwing up all the time...tired of diarrhea every day for over a week. (Sorry for those of you who are reading this and thinking, "why did he have to mention that?" Remember, it's my blog, and I'm writing it for me, not you.) Good news for the day: my white blood cells have finally shown signs of life. They're at 200. My neutrophils are only at 4 (they need to be at 500 before I get to go home), but both numbers should be taking a nice move forward tomorrow. A couple days ago, they began to give me daily injections of Neupogen to help my white blood cells make the comeback we need. Neupogen, as you may recall, is something my body responds well to. It's what I got over the several days leading up to the collection of stem cells - remember we were able to harvest 5 million stem cells from my blood without ever having to add the drug that's specifically designed to have them release into the blood stream. It was the Neupogen that did that for us. So, we have high hopes for all of my counts making a strong comeback over the next few days. That will help me fight off my bowel infection, too.

March 5, 2013: Day 11

This morning, my night nurse came in with my day nurses just to gloat (playfully) about how wonderful she is. You see, she's taking credit for the huge jump in my counts. My white blood cells are at 1000 and my neutrophils are at 500 this morning. That's a big jump, but we're still not quite where we need to be to check that part of things off of the list of what needs to happen to get John out of the hospital.

I have been absolutely stir crazy the past couple days...no joke, out-of-my-mind stir crazy. I have lost my patience and my ability to focus on anything for very long. For example, in one hour's time today, I went from playing a game with Noelle, to watching a movie ("Cast Away", with Tom Hanks), to playing Wii, to taking a walk to playing a game again. Noelle is being as patient with me as she can, but I know I'm driving HER crazy with my constant let's-not-do-this-anymore-let's-do-something-else behavior. She's so good to put up with me.

So, after not being allowed to eat or drink anything over the past several days, aside from a little water to take my meds, today I've been allowed "sips of clear liquids" (water, juice, Snapple, Sprite, etc.). We're trying to move gradually towards where my body can handle food again, but we're taking it by degrees. After this, I should be allowed a full liquid diet, then simple solids, then full solids. That's sort of the path we need to be on. The question is, will my body cooperate?
I think it will. One way or the other, Dr. Kim is the surgeon who is in charge of when I get to progress on that path. He's also the one who would perform the surgery on me should something go backwards from where we are now.

I have no more pain in my abdomen, which is a great step forward. That suggests that my new white blood cells and neutrophils are helping to heal my typhilitis, which, in turn, suggests that I should be able to eat and drink without trouble soon. Dr. Ford, who pioneered the BMT program here at LDSH, says he hopes to get me out of here "in the next few days."

Today, I said goodbye to Devin Holt, a nursing student who has been doing his "capstone" nursing here to finish up his degree requirements. Good guy. I'm sure he'll land somewhere great when he's done with school this spring.

One last thing...I have confirmed that my hair has indeed begun to fall out. It's time for a shave...

Well, that will actually wrap up this post...finally. I know it's been a long one, but I'm trying to be as detailed about my hospital stay as possible.