Sorry about the
delay since my last post. I've had a couple of worried emails.. In fact
they classified my case as 'uneventful' and moved me to a different ward. Still
in isolation, but bigger room and no internet (or CCTV!). It took a
few days to reactivate the mobile doobrey I was using to connect to the internet
in the other hospital, and I've had a couple of days where a change of drugs has
wiped me out and I've been doing very little but sleep and
doze.
By the way - being
classified as an uneventful case was good news. What these docs classify
as 'eventful' would probably be painful and possibly life
threatening.... In my case they'd been looking for signs of
GVHD for several days and hadn't found any.
I'd misunderstood
the sequence. I thought that GVHD followed that transplant straight away and
automatically. In fact it can pop up at any time after engraftment though
usually it's sooner rather than later.
When I got up here
to K20North they were planning to observe till Monday, take a bone marrow sample
then and assuming it all looked good release me later in the week. But since
I've been here the diarrhoea has returned plus a couple of new rashes (that may
be just fungal infections - then again they may not). So suddenly
since yesterday I'm back on the IV food, nil by mouth, steroid
immunosuppressants, IV antifungals instead of pill form etc etc. This will
last for 3 -4 days. Then they'll stop the steroids and see what happens.
It all seems a bit hit and miss to me - but I suppose that every case is
different, and they just have to react to what happens.
Some good news is
that my neutrophil counts have stabilised. For the past three or four days the
numbers have been hovering between 1.5 and 2, without artificial assistance :)
Anyway - that's my
lot for today. I'm tired and the drugs are doing odd things to my sleep cycles
and energy levels. Don't miss the next exciting episode - same Bat Time,
same Bat Channel!