Thursday +171 (Evening)

Just a quick note to mention that we received a good report from the doctor today. It seems her lung CT show "marked" improvement. This is due to the Prednisone. We will meet with the pulmonary doctor tomorrow. He will decide if we should begin to taper the Prednisone. They would like to get her off the steroids as soon as possible. It is likely she could have a reactivation of her CMV virus while on the Prednisone. For this reason she will need to be tested weekly for reactivation. The Herpes (no it is not the STD one!) has improved as well. The PA made the remark that it seems every transplant patient has to deal with Herpes reactivation at some point. From what I can gather they feel Jackie is lucky the outbreak was in her mouth and on her gums. It seem most patients experience the Herpes zoster (Shingles) form which is often very painful.

Jackie's blood test have improved for the most part. Her RBC (Hgl) is 10.9. This is still below normal, but an improvement from several weeks ago when she required two units of whole blood to maintain her above the Mayo threshold of 8.0. Jackie's WBC count was a respectable 3.2 with a lowered ANC of 1.46. The 1.46 is still OK, but down from a previous 2.3. Her platelet have risen to a stellar 170! This is within normal ranges and such a relief from the level of one year ago. One year ago this number would have been below 30. Eleven months ago it was at 2

Yesterday was one of the few days when she reported feeling "normal" again. There have been only a couple of these over the last few months so it is always nice when that happens. Hopefully the number of "I feel normal" days will increase as time goes by.

Until Later...


Bruce and jackie
From Rochester, MN