Monday +75 (6:40 PM) Second Update

We spent most of the day at the hospital. This morning we had the usual blood tests. This afternoon we met with one of the RN nurse coordinators with regard to graduation from hospital to clinic. We met with her for about 1.5 hours. We also met with Jackie's transplant doctor for an extended period.

As I mentioned in the earlier update, Jackie's WBC counts have once again declined. Today the counts were: RBC (Hgl) 9.7. WBC was 0.9 with an ANC of only 0.57. Her platelets were 119. Due to the low WBC count she is once again receiving growth factor shots. She will receive one per day for the next three days. The shot will likely bring her counts back up again. The question the docs have is, "Why are the counts declining?" They feel there are several reasons. All of them drug related. For that reason they are going to completely remove one of her anti-rejection drugs; Mycophenolate. They feel with this removed and with only oral doses of Ganicyclovir her counts will recover on their own. Of course if she begins to get some GvHD or a change in her donor chimerism their plan will need to be altered. We are hoping to have the CMV test results later this evening. We hope they are still negative. If not, this could reset some of our plans.

All that said, if she stabilizes by our next doctor's appointment on Thursday they are thinking of releasing her to go home until her 100 day appointment in 25 days! There are lots of "ifs" but we are still crossing our fingers.

Since I didn't get any comments on the blog yesterday I thought maybe I scared everyone off. Jackie thought my warning was a little too blunt. In case you haven't noticed she is a lot nicer than I am:) That said, we got almost the same lecture I gave on yesterday's blog from the nurse today. She even had hand-outs and assigned reading on the subject of germs when you go home. About the only thing I didn't cover last night was vaccinations and pets. There are a bunch of do's and don'ts with regard to vaccinations. Most of them won't apply to us. She has to be careful not to be around young children who have had school vaccinations made from live virus vaccines. They are a little fuzzy about pets. We can have pets and she can be around live plants again but she cannot be around pet feces. I think Chloe may have to live outside when we get back home. That is a question that will need to be further clarified.

All-in-all Jackie had a good day. She was tired as always, and had some back pain but overall things were good.

So, hopefully by next weekend we can return home for a short visit. I will post as we know more.

Until Later...

Bruce and Jackie
From Rochester, MN