Day 3

We're officially 3 days past Day Zero - Stem Cell Transplant Day and Joe still has all his hair and overall doing very well.  He's definitely starting to feel fatigued and feeling the side effects of this process - nausea, etc.  He was pretty drained at the end of the day today, but we did get a walk in to help to continue to strengthen his bones.  He's lost 11lbs so far.

The nurses continue to tell us the worst is yet to come this week.  All his blood levels are dropping significantly every day and we're sure he'll have to have transfusions this week.  His white blood count (immune system) today was 1.2.  Normal range is 4.0 to 7.0.  His platelets (blood clotting) are also getting low at 103 today on a normal range of 150 to 450.  Lastly his Hematocrit (carries oxygen thru the blood stream) was at 28.2 on a normal range of 38.0 to 50.0.  We anticipate all these numbers will be close to zero at some point this week.  

He did have a pretty active day today and had his central line removed due to the Staph infection and new lines put into his arm so he can continue to get his IV medications.  His Staph infection is MSSA, NOT MRSA (the real bad one) and is treatable with antibiotics in the penicillin family.  GREAT NEWS!!  So it appears we have the Staph under control at this point.  

Tomorrow, he'll have a new central line put in.  They know they will need to be giving him blood products over the next two weeks and also want to be able to culture the blood and having that central line in his chest is the best/most efficient way to handle all of that.   

Dad had a good visit with John Thomas today which always puts a smile on both Dad and John Thomas' faces!  

Thank you for your kind notes, continued prayers and support.