July 5, 2000 - Day 118 - Week 17
Hi Everyone!
We've given up on counting days -- we're up to 118. Now we count weeks! Tomorrow (Thursday) marks 17 weeks since Dave's transplant. Wow, where did the time go??
We went to Boston for another check up today. The doctor said, "You're doing great!" He did his usual look, listen, poke and prod, and said everything looks and sounds good.
Dave also had the usual blood draw, and his counts are looking good: whites - 4.5, reds - 34, platelets - 209. The whites are finally close to normal (4.8 is the low end of normal). Dave can now drink bottled water and eat all foods at restaurants (except raw meat, but eeeewwww, we don't eat raw meat anyway!).
We had a nice visit with Jaimison on Tuesday night (Dave's son, for those of you who new to our list). He got a new car, so we had him drive when we went out to eat. He took us to a barbecue place that was pretty good. The carnivore in me loved it! And Jaimison's car still has that new car smell -- something ours haven't had in quite a while!
Our next visit is on August 7th. We'll talk to the doctor in more detail about doing a blood transfusion from Jon to Dave in September (it's a two-day affair -- after they take the blood, it is processed, and Dave will get it the next day). This is where Dave will get the T cells that were depleted during his initial transplant. The idea is that the T cells will enter Dave's body and attack any remaining leukemia cells that may have survived this ordeal, effectively ridding Dave of the disease. During our August visit Dave will undergo a bone marrow aspiration -- the doctor will take some marrow from Dave's hip bone, and check it out to see if there are any Philadelphia chromosomes -- the bad leukemia cells. Not a procedure Dave is looking forward to, but it needs to be done. At least it's only one poke -- poor Jon had lots!
Then we'll schedule a visit for September, and Jon will come up and we'll do Transplant Part 2. The biggest unknown about doing the transfusion is whether Dave will develop Graft vs. Host disease (GVHD). Hopefully by then his body will be manufacturing enough cells on its own so that it won't see Jon's T cells as foreign and make Dave sick.
The doctor has assured us that even if Dave does develop GVHD, it will be chronic -- relatively mild and not life threatening. The other type of GVHD is acute, and can be very serious. Had Dave not had a T-cell depleted transplant, he would have been more likely to develop acute GVHD because his body was already so compromised. The doctor isn't worried, so we're trying not to be. Unknowns always make me worry, but somehow this unknown doesn't compare to all the unknowns we were facing back in January and February. We survived that, we'll survive this.
We returned to Vermont today via the scenic route. We skipped the direct highway route drove up through New Hampshire and saw some beautiful country. The sky was as blue as could be, with puffy white clouds, and the air was cool and dry thanks to a high pressure system settled over the area. Sure beat the heat and humidity of the day before!
Hope all is well with you. We'll talk to you again soon.
Allison