Day 6

Today has been a little rough. My stomach has not felt good all week, but today it's worse. It's not causing me to throw up, but it's just bloated and hurts at the top of the stomach. So I'm taking antacids and the like. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow, but I sure have been a couch potato today.

My white counts are down to just about nothing at 0.1. I'm getting red blood and platelet infusions just about daily. My marrow is just about dead so it can't produce any white or red blood. So as those components die off naturally in the bloodstream, they have to be replaced in the bloodstream to keep me safe. Well, the red blood and platelets can be replaced, the white cells cannot be. Infusions don't affect the marrow; it just puts someone else's blood in me for a temporary fix. When I engraft, then the new stem cells will begin to make new components on its own. That will take a few days after engraftment. Engraftment is when the new stem cells find their way to the marrow and "take hold." Stem cells usually reside in the marrow and don't float around too much in the peripheral bloodstream. It takes them a while to find where they are suppose to be.

I got a card from my donor. Guess what? She's a rabid college football fan. My kind of gal! She mentioned the school and colors in her note in the card, but the sensors scribbled through it with a pen. They do enforce the one year of anonymity. At least they tried to, but I figured it out after staring at it for awhile. She's a Texas A & M Aggie fan. That's okay - I can deal with that. LOL How about that Susan and Robert? All in the family.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers for full engraftment.