Saturday +10 (1:30 PM)

Jackie continues to run a low-grade fever. Once again it hit the "magic" number of 101.3. At this number they do blood cultures and chest X-rays to make certain nothing serious is happening in the way of an infection. Just after her temperature spiked we learned why she is running the fever. It seems she has a very common and very slow growing staph infection. She has had it all along. It took days for a culture to finally show up in the Petri dish. The docs are placing her back on Vancomycin. They had withdrawn it several days ago when her original cultures failed to produce anything in the first 72 hours. The staph bacteria is a very common one most often found on your skin. They are not worried about the infection at all, but she will remain on the Vancomycin IV drip for 10 days. For that reason I'm not certain if she can go out-patient.

I think one of the reasons they are not too worried is because her neutrophils have risen above the 500 level. This is the part of the blood that is active in fighting off invading germs and foreign organisms. With the increased level of neutrophils her body will able to help mount its own defense. They have really been impressed with her quick engraftment and blood count recovery! Her fluid problem continues to slowly resolve itself. The fluid is slowly coming off; but not as fast as it went on.

Jackie wanted me to let everyone know she appreciates everyone's thoughts, cards, letters and prayers. She asked that you keep another patient her in your thoughts and prayers. I mentioned them on the blog a few days ago. She came into the Mayo from Ohio with CML (another, more serious form of leukemia) and was very sick. She received a transplant and is now +23. I saw her husband again this morning and he asked how Jackie was doing. I sheepishly told him she had engrafted at +8. His wife still has not engrafted and is very sick. Her WBC count has not been above .3 since the transplant. She had terrible problems with her mouth and throat and cannot eat anything. Although her husband (about 40 yrs. old) is always optimistic it has to be discouraging that someone like Jackie engrafted in only 8 days.

There are a lot of sick people around the floor. Fortunately most of them seem to be getting better!

Until Later...

Bruce and Jackie
From Rochester, MN