Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Day + 139 Compared to other transplant patients John is sure doing well. Ted one of the fellow BMT patients at city of hope is sure having a tough time. He has had a couple bouts of food poisoning (nothing a healthy immune system wouldn't immediately fight off) a couple colds and a staph infection. When I hear of others and compare John I feel so grateful how well John is doing.
I had a little scare and freak out last week when John felt really terrible on his birthday and asked that the cancer center draw an extra CBC just to make sure the stinkin' leukemia wasn't trying to sneak back. Turns out my alarms were going off for nothing, John was fine. He probably just hit an exhaustion wall going back to school. He is still tired and his hemoglobin is still going down again, so he is back on Epogen injections.
Today at the appointment revealed nothing exciting. The lab didn't send the results yet of the Friday CMV culture so John is still on the double dose of anti-viral medication. Dr. Wolf said he would call as soon as he hears that way the medication can be cut back in half and hopefully help John's platelet count which has been traveling back downward. Today the platelets were 143, WBC was 2.5 and the hemoglobin is 11.5. The only worrisome thing this visit is John's liver enzymes are going up. This could mean since John is on such a low dose of prednisone that there is some GVH in his liver. If his enzymes do not improve by next week Dr. Wolf says they will increase the steroids. I think the liver enzymes were up because it was his birthday this last week and he probably had a couple birthday beers.
Next week John's appointment is on Monday and I will post a note regarding the CMV results as soon as I hear from Dr. Wolf.
I had a little scare and freak out last week when John felt really terrible on his birthday and asked that the cancer center draw an extra CBC just to make sure the stinkin' leukemia wasn't trying to sneak back. Turns out my alarms were going off for nothing, John was fine. He probably just hit an exhaustion wall going back to school. He is still tired and his hemoglobin is still going down again, so he is back on Epogen injections.
Today at the appointment revealed nothing exciting. The lab didn't send the results yet of the Friday CMV culture so John is still on the double dose of anti-viral medication. Dr. Wolf said he would call as soon as he hears that way the medication can be cut back in half and hopefully help John's platelet count which has been traveling back downward. Today the platelets were 143, WBC was 2.5 and the hemoglobin is 11.5. The only worrisome thing this visit is John's liver enzymes are going up. This could mean since John is on such a low dose of prednisone that there is some GVH in his liver. If his enzymes do not improve by next week Dr. Wolf says they will increase the steroids. I think the liver enzymes were up because it was his birthday this last week and he probably had a couple birthday beers.
Next week John's appointment is on Monday and I will post a note regarding the CMV results as soon as I hear from Dr. Wolf.
