Day +9

Today is Day +9. My counts are still at .1 and haven't moved at all for the past couple days. The doctors said this is expected and I wouldn't see my counts start to go up until engraftment occurs, typically by Day +10 which is tomorrow. Hopefully when they do my laps later on today, I'll have gone up a little bit.

My platelets have dropped all the way down to 10 (my average is 150) so I had to get a platelet transfusion Thursday night. If a patient has low platelets, it makes them susceptible to bleeding. The transfusion went fine although I did get an allergic reaction of itchy eyes which wasn't anything serious but they had to give me benadryl to counteract the hives. Benadryl knocks me out so I actually got some pretty good sleep in that night!

I've started having the side effects with being neutropenic. On Wednesday night I started getting some chills and had a low grade fever of 100.2. It wasn't enough to put me on medication though and it passed fairly quickly. However, what I've had really bad side effects of are the sores. I've been very careful to avoid mouth sores as all the people I've talked to have said it was the worst thing they experienced as it limited their abilities to eat and swallow. So I've been rinsing my mouth with the saline solution they've provided me about 6-7 times a day and so far, I haven't had any mouth sores. Unfortunately, the sores occurred on the other end of the digestive system. I was slightly sore earlier in the week due to some constipation from the Zofran anti-nausea medication I was administered for a week during chemo. Well, the soreness has intensified but it's not from constipation anymore. No one had told me you could get sores on your butt and maybe because it's a pretty sensitive subject to touch on, but apparently it's also a common side effect. Basically you could have sores anywhere in your digestive tract! So yeah, I have some sores and it's been pretty painful the past few days. Last night was pretty bad in terms of the pain- so much so I couldn't sleep- and they had to give me pain medication to help numb it. Today it's a bit better but I'm still on pain medication. The doctors said that this should go away once my counts go up and my body can start to heal itself.  

I've been in the hospital for 15 days now and the doctors said that despite the sores I have, I'm doing great and once my counts go up, I should be able to leave this place pretty soon. They estimate that I'll get discharged on Tuesday which would be Day +12 and only a few days away from now. So I guess when engraftment occurs, my counts go up pretty quickly from there. Yes! I am so looking forward to leaving this place and it seems that it's just around the corner now. It's not because I hate being in a hospital but the significance is that my treatment will have been successful; my cancer is gone and I'll be going home with a brand new immune system-- one that hopefully will be much stronger and keep on fighting anything that comes its way.