Day 26

Things are about the same. I'm getting magnesium through IV every day, plus now taking a couple of magnesium pills. This is not going to be good for the stomach. But they have to get the magnesium level up.

The APN told me today that they saw a couple of CMV cells in the blood stream today. CMV is cyto megla virus. Most people have a dormant copy of CMV floating around in them. With a transplant patient, though, the dormancy can change to active easily and cause flu like symptoms. So they will be watching this closely and will begin to treat me for it if the level builds up. I signed up Monday for a Phase III study regarding a new drug which keeps CMV dormant. The study is a double blind test. So I don't know if I'm getting the real drug or a placebo. However 2/3 of the study participants will get the real thing, so odds are good. Even if I get a placebo, they watch and test all participants closely, so treatment could get started earlier if I did come down with CMV.

This Sunday is Day 30. So next week they'll do a complete restaging of the disease which will include a chimerism test, bone marrow aspiration, PET scan, and CT scan. Lots of fun. It will take until the following week to get the results back. Those tests will tell us how far along the transplant is.

That's all for now.