One Year Anniversary +365

Well, one year ago today Jackie received her transplant! It has been a long year for all involved, but a lot of progress has been made. If she makes as much progress in the next year she will be doing great!

Jackie has been doing reasonably well. Her lack of appetite is gone. She now wants to eat everything in the house. I suspect this is due to the steroids she is taking. It seems that she probably has (or had) a small amount of graft-versus-host-disease (GvHD) in her stomach. The steroids have helped alleviate the problem. She is beginning to taper her steroid usage. We will see what happens with the GvHD as this happens.

She continues to have some overall pain and malaise. This is helped a great deal by a daily (small) dose of Oxycodone. She has tried to forego the pain medication, but it certainly helps her get through the day.

All-in-all she is doing well. She is able to do many of her daily house chores and is even spending some time in our home gym on the treadmill and weight machine.

The most recent tests still indicate no indication of CLL! We are scheduled to return to The Mayo Clinic in early July. They are beginning to transition her from Dr. Hogan's transplant department back to Dr. Zent's hematology department.

We/she still worry about infection. As I write this she is running a minor fever. We aren't certain why...It has happened before and nothing happened. In fact, a few weeks ago she was running a low-grade fever for several weeks but nothing materialized. Still, things like this are always a concern.

So...we hope that in another year I will be reporting on the blog that another year has passed and we hope there is even less to report. For those who read this and are facing a potential transplant let this serve as notice the while the process is not easy, it CAN be done and the outcome CAN be good!

Until Later....

Bruce and Jackie
From Pryor