Tuesday +54 (10:30 PM)

Jackie had another so-so day. She was less nauseated, but still didn't feel well much of the day. A lot of time was spent on the sofa and in bed. Again, as the day improved she felt better.

We spoke with the neurologist this morning. The MRI scans were normal. She shows to have a small amount of arthritis, "but nothing to write home about". He feels much of her back pain is due to the CMV virus. This probably makes sense because she often describes her pain as being similar to flu-like symptoms. In order to better battle the CMV virus they are tapering off the Mycophenolate dosages. This is one of the anti-rejection drugs. They plan to taper her at the rate of 250 mg every 5 days. Currently she is at a daily dosage of 2250 mg per day. So, as you can see it will be a long time before this medication is completely gone.

Jackie's blood counts recovered somewhat today. Her RBC (Hgl) improved to 9.6 from 9.3 yesterday. Her WBC count improved to 2.2 from 1.9 yesterday. Her platelets improved to 165 (one short of her record 166) from 148 yesterday. As I've said many times, if her CMV problem can be solved I think her blood counts will skyrocket. The Ganicyclovir severely depresses blood counts. Of course the CMV itself depresses the blood counts.

I've included a few photos of the inside and outside of the Mayo Clinic. You can click on any of the images for a larger version. The photos of the artwork are from some very famous artists. The flowers are by Andy Warhol (there are actually 9 paintings). The other painting is by Joan Miro. I don't know the value, but it is likely that the combined values would be in the millions. People walk by them everyday and pay absolutely no attention to them. I've suggested to a few nurses they load them into a pickup truck and take them to Southeby's Auction in NY where they can be sold and the money placed toward the construction of a cafeteria! The Warhol paintings are directly across from what passes for their version of a cafeteria. To bad David Geffen wasn't into cooking (instead of auditoriums). The photo of the lamps is part of their collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany work. Again, I don't know the value of the lamps, but I've seen ones like this on the Antique Roadshow. As I recall, a lamp like one of these is valued in the low hundreds-of-thousands...just enough to buy a good hot dog steamer and soft serve ice cream machine:)