Day +5

Today is Day +5 since my stem cell transplant. I've felt pretty good the last several days. No nausea, no fatigue or other side effects. It's quite a contrast from the previous week where I was feeling everything bad. Since I haven't had any nausea the last several days, my appetite has come back and I've been eating as much as I can off a combination of home cooked food and hospital food. I've also been trying to get 4 miles in by walking twice a day while I have the energy. I've been waiting for my counts to drop and dreading the side effects- fever, diarrhea, nausea, mouth sores, bruises- that come with having essentially no WBC.

Yesterday, my counts dropped down to .1, the lowest point it will go- essentially at zero- before it will start to go back up. When the nurse told me my counts were at .1, I said "SWEET!" and she said she had never had a patient who celebrated their counts being that low! Well, when you know it has to go that low before it goes back up - and that's the expectation- it just means that I'm on track and it's one less day for me to be in the hospital. The doctors said it may stay that way for a few days before it starts going back up but they said because I have had very little side effects so far, they said that I'm doing much better than 95% of the patients they've seen. That made me feel pretty good. Hopefully it stays this way in the next few days. Tomorrow I will stop my neupogen shots to help increase my counts. If all goes well and I continue to make good progress, I definitely could be out of here before the 9/24 estimated discharge date and go home. I miss my kids. Addie seems to be growing and learning something new everyday and I feel like I'm missing out on that. I don't want to miss too many more days.