I'm at day 11 and have both good and bad news to report. I am back in the hospital as of last night and will stay here until my baby white blood cells are over 500k.
Yesterday started out fine. I went to the clinic and needed some magnesium infusions. No big deal; this was not the first time. I got home and just couldn't get enough sleep. When I finally woke up late afternoon I knew I had a fever. We took my temp and sure enough my fever was 100.5. Our instructions were to call in with anything over 100.4. My temp fluctuated for the next hour between 100 and 100.8. Although this was too high it wasn't severely high. It was just high enough for my body to be telling me there was something wrong and it couldn't fix it. We called and they sent us to the emergency room where they ran a multiplicity of tests to find out if I had an infection. So far, all of the tests show that I don't have any infections. I do have mouth sores and a swollen lymph node in my jaw. Standard protocol is to keep the patient on antibiotics until the baby white blood cells start to improve. Mine are at 0 right now :( They can improve quickly however and that's what I'm hoping for. They do think they will start to climb in the next few days.
I still am doing very good for someone on day 11 of a transplant. My white blood cells are up past 550k right now. This is excellent as it means that my brother's cells have taken over and those 550k are likely his cells that my body adopted. Now we wait for my body to make new ones with his stem cells.
I had a rather comical allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics last night. Do you remember the movie, "Hitch" and the part where Will Smith is allergic to shell food? My reaction was pretty much that times 100. I had severe itching, swelling, numbing, burning, and all sorts of crazy stuff happening from my shoulders up. I even lost half of my hair last night, seriously! For those of you in the medical field you will know this as "red man syndrome."
Right now I am sleeping a lot and having a hard time eating. My mouth is sore that even "soft" foods are painful to get down. I know it's important to eat however, and I have been getting something down at each meal. Although I would call my mouth pain severe, the doctors said it's really not since I don't have any broken skin in my mouth. It's just mini boils and a swollen lymph node.
I am somewhat disappointed that I had to be re-hospitalized but I know it's normal and it's for the best. I'm just hoping I get out within a week, which is what they are thinking now :)
Thanks for your support! I'm signing off to take a nap!
Yesterday started out fine. I went to the clinic and needed some magnesium infusions. No big deal; this was not the first time. I got home and just couldn't get enough sleep. When I finally woke up late afternoon I knew I had a fever. We took my temp and sure enough my fever was 100.5. Our instructions were to call in with anything over 100.4. My temp fluctuated for the next hour between 100 and 100.8. Although this was too high it wasn't severely high. It was just high enough for my body to be telling me there was something wrong and it couldn't fix it. We called and they sent us to the emergency room where they ran a multiplicity of tests to find out if I had an infection. So far, all of the tests show that I don't have any infections. I do have mouth sores and a swollen lymph node in my jaw. Standard protocol is to keep the patient on antibiotics until the baby white blood cells start to improve. Mine are at 0 right now :( They can improve quickly however and that's what I'm hoping for. They do think they will start to climb in the next few days.
I still am doing very good for someone on day 11 of a transplant. My white blood cells are up past 550k right now. This is excellent as it means that my brother's cells have taken over and those 550k are likely his cells that my body adopted. Now we wait for my body to make new ones with his stem cells.
I had a rather comical allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics last night. Do you remember the movie, "Hitch" and the part where Will Smith is allergic to shell food? My reaction was pretty much that times 100. I had severe itching, swelling, numbing, burning, and all sorts of crazy stuff happening from my shoulders up. I even lost half of my hair last night, seriously! For those of you in the medical field you will know this as "red man syndrome."
Right now I am sleeping a lot and having a hard time eating. My mouth is sore that even "soft" foods are painful to get down. I know it's important to eat however, and I have been getting something down at each meal. Although I would call my mouth pain severe, the doctors said it's really not since I don't have any broken skin in my mouth. It's just mini boils and a swollen lymph node.
I am somewhat disappointed that I had to be re-hospitalized but I know it's normal and it's for the best. I'm just hoping I get out within a week, which is what they are thinking now :)
Thanks for your support! I'm signing off to take a nap!