After 18 days in the hospital, Joe is home!  He got the green light today from all his doctors! His WBC today was 6.6, HCT was 27.0 and Platelets 27.  Limited stomach upset and not much pain in the arm.  He returns to see the specialist on Monday, September 22 to get another count reading and find out next steps with treatment and removing the port.   [...]

Joe is doing outstanding!  Day 13 post transplant and his numbers are climbing very nicely.  WBC at 7.8!!  HCT at 27.2 and Platelets at 31.  Healthy levels are WBC:  3.8 to 9.8.  HCT at 36.1 to 50.3.  Platelets at 140 to 440.  He's well on his way!  As his WBC continues to recover, it drives his HCT and Platelets.  His swelling has started to reduce as they've started giving him meds to reduce his water level.  He's officially lost 11 lbs at this point.  Dr. Vij, his specialist, came in today and said he's doing outstanding - the doctor couldn't be more pleased with his progress.  They will take his blood early tomorrow and he'll be headed home by tomorrow afternoon!  They originally told us he'd be in the hospital about 3 weeks and we're at the end of our 3rd week!  [...]

It's finally happened.  Joe said he woke up this morning and had hair in his eyes, his ears, down his back and called on trusty Earl, one of the medical techs, to come in and shave the holdout hairs off his head! [...]

Well, I'm not sure how the day started, but by this evening, he was in a great mood - laughing and joking - just like the Joe we all know and love!   His counts continue to be steady with slight improvement in WBC:  1.4, HCT slightly up at 25.5, but platelets dropped to 8.  They did give him a platelet transfusion this afternoon.  He said that really helped and he was feeling much better.  Keeping up with meds, helped his nausea and other side effects.  He was having some significant shoulder pain and foot pain today, but some morphine seemed to keep that in check.  His weight continues to increase which means he's retaining a lot of fluid. You could start to see some swelling in his legs/feet/hands today.  They are not addressing this yet until they get some of the other side effects under control.    [...]

Joe had a pretty good day today.  Still has his hair!  Counts remained steady at WBC .4, HCT at 25 and Platelets at 10.  They are continuing to give him the growth shot to increase these numbers.  All the doctors and RN say he's right on track. They don't transfuse platelets unless they are below 10, so at this point, no more transfusions.  Hopefully that holds and he starts to recover those numbers on his own with the help of the growth shot.  All of his other vitals also looked good.  [...]

Joe had a pretty rough day today.  Numbers continue to be low with slight improvement.  WBC is at .3, HCT is at 25.6 and Platelets are at 10.  Blood sugars and Blood pressure held steady at 126/72.  Fever continued at 99.2.  We anticipate tomorrow will be another blood transfusion as well as platelet transfusion.  Since the "general population" platelets have not been boosting him like they should, we will try more specific matched platelets (ABO for those RNs peeking in on Joe) to hopefully get a good boost in the platelet count.  [...]

Despite the beautiful day and fun visitors for lunch, Joe still had a pretty rough day.  His numbers are still down with WBC at .2, HCT at 26.8 and Platelets were at 9 again.   He got a good dose of Potassium today and another transfusion of Platelets.  If today's dose of platelets don't raise his number, they will have to start a process to do more specific matching to get his numbers up.  I anticipate tomorrow he may have to have another red blood transfusion as well.  [...]

Day 7 has proven to be a worthy opponent!  While still a very good and close friend, Gertie has become #3 next to Ralph, his pink bucket (as noted in picture), and Privy (It's a noun - Google it).  [...]

We're 6 days past Transplant Day and Joe is holding his own.  While he felt his worst yesterday, today was only slightly improved. Side effects continue to drain him and he feels fatigued.  This is all normal as his counts continue to drop.  White Blood Count is at 0.1 (no ability to fight infections) and his HCT (red blood) is at 23.8 (transfusion time) and Platelets continue to hold at 21.  They won't give him additional platelets until he's below 10 - likely this weekend.  While his WBC won't get much lower, we do anticipate his HCT and Platelets will continue to drop.  Matt, Dad's primary RN today, tells us that he'll continue to feel this same way through Monday but he is exactly on track in his recovery process.  By Monday, he should start feeling better.  He did get two units of blood tonight which should have an immediate positive impact.   Mom did get him to talk a walk around the floor this morning, but he wasn't up to the task tonight. At least we got one good walk in.  [...]