Day 4 and All Is Well

Here it is the 4th day after the stem cell infusion and I feel great. Actually I have felt fine since the stem cell transplant infusion. I'm doing 3+ miles a day around the hospital floor. The nurses are beginning to laugh at me. I keep getting behind these slow pokes and have to pass them. One guy wanted to know what they are putting in my IV. LOL

I am attached 24 hours a day to an IV. They are constantly pumping in Tacrolimus, the anti-rejection drug, along with saline, potassium, magnesium, and various drugs as they see fit. There are 3 connections in my chest so they can pump in lots of stuff. Currently I have only 4 bags of stuff hanging on the IV tree and being infused. After 9 days of being tethered to this IV tree I'm getting tired of it. I call it my dance partner. And it will be there until I get out of the hospital. You have to eat, sleep, shower, brush your teeth, etc. with the thing. Showers are a real challenge because you have to keep the dressing over the CVC in the chest dry. Fortunately, the shower is a roll in with a hand held shower head.

My white blood count is almost zero courtesy of the chemotherapy. But the red counts are holding up still. The platelet count is trending down and was 69k this morning. Normal healthy levels are about 200k to 400k. Mine run 150 on a good day. They will give me a transfusion of platelets when they get around 20 probably. Platelets are the glue that keeps you from bleeding profusely. So you don't want to do without them. A bag of platelets looks sort of like a bag of wood glue only a little darker, so I guess the analogy works.

My hemoglobin is holding steady just above 11. Normal is 14 to 17. Hemoglobin is the part of the blood that carries oxygen to your muslces and tissues. As long as my hemoglobin is above 11 I have a pretty good level of energy. Below 10 and I start to drag, though. They will give me a transfusion of red blood when the level drops below 8. Hematocrit has been staying steady, too. That's the stuff that carries iron and nutrients to your body.

It's still early, but there is no sign of engraftment of the new stem cells yet. The first sign of that will be when the white count begins to rise. A buddy of mine who is about 3 weeks ahead of me in the stem cell transplant process here came by to see me this morning. He's been out of the hospital for 2 weeks now. His white count is 5,000. During chemotherapy over the last couple of years I struggled to keep mine above 1,000.

When the white count gets too high you have a problem. Normal is about 8,000 to 15,000. Mine was about 30,000 when I was first diagnosed and doubled in less than six months. That was just the diseased B cells not dying off as they would if they were healthy.

Well, it's about time for my next mile, so I'll close with that.

Thanks for visiting.