June 5, 2000 -- Day 88 -- Fresh Fruits & Veggies!
Hi Everyone!
Another successful trip to Boston! The doctor poked, prodded, listened, looked and said Dave is in good shape! We don't have to go back for a month!
We made it through the first 3 months without incident. Now we'll take the next three. At six months, we'll have Jon come up again and give some more of his blood. This will give Dave the T-cells that were depleted when he had his transplant. These cells should attack any remaining leukemia cells that might be lurking in Dave's body.
We found out on Saturday that we lost one of our housemates from Shannon's House. Kristyna was a young woman who had Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, a far more aggressive form than Dave had. She went in for her bmt in April, and had a rough time. She developed pneumonia brought on by cytomegalovirus (CMV), and wasn't able to pull out of it. She fought a hard fight, and we'll miss her.
On a more positive note, before Dave went in for his transplant, our nurse Mildred asked if he'd be willing to talk to another patient who just found out he needed a transplant and was having a tough time coming to terms with it. His name is Steven Dee, and we've been e-mailing with him since. He stopped by to see Dave while Dave was in the hospital, and had his transplant about a month later. We ran into him in the waiting room this morning, and he's doing great! He was full of energy and upbeat. We compared notes for a few minutes before we each got called in for our appointments. It was nice to run into him.
Yet another housemate and bmt patient, Bruce, is back home in Vancouver, and recovering nicely. He and Steven were in the same unit at the same time. It's nice to be able to keep up with these folks and know that they're doing well. As the doctors love to say, everyone is different, so we can't judge our progress based on anyone else's. But still, it's nice to hear the success stories.
Dave's energy has returned, and he even drove part of the trip down and back. It was nice to be able to look out the windows and see all the stuff that's been flying by on these trips, rather than keeping my eyes on the road. He's also been cleared to start eating fresh fruits and vegetables again -- salads for dinner tonight! And his hair is growing in, and he's got his mustache again!
One other happy occasion -- Dave's brother Jon -- you remember him, he's the hero in this story who donated his bone marrow to Dave -- just became a proud father (again) of Seth Andrew, born on Wednesday, May 31. Way to go, Jon and Andrea!
Oh, by the way, no blood counts yet. They weren't available before we left Boston, so we'll find out tomorrow.
Talk to you all soon!
Allison