Transplant News

2/8/07 Day 29

Let me start out with a bit of an update from yesterday. Ann was feeling pretty good and hungry for "real" food for a change. So with her suggestion I whipped up some very basic chicken soft tacos with avocado chunks in lime. I'm happy to say she ate two large tacos and then a tortilla by itself. That's the best she has done since the diagnosis.

Ann asked me to cook some red meat for dinner sometime and has been craving ketchup. Red meat is pretty sparse on the hospital menu and suprisingly so is ketchup. I have been avoiding foods that need a lot of prep time in the kitchen or could attract germs, but considering how much more active she is trying to be I think I need to add more protein to her diet.

So tonight will be sloppy joe night, that should take care of her desire for meat and ketchup at the same time. While at the same time keeping the chance of cross contamination in the kitchen to a minimum level. At least half of a sloppy joe comes out of a can after all.

Our day today is made up of running around MDA and getting tests done. Ann had to get a EKG this morning for the insurance company. They requested one before releasing the funds for the BMT. Then we had to go and get blood drawn ahead of a Doctor's visit.

On the way in we ran into the social worker from the BMT clinic. Her name is Brandy and she is just a genuinely wonderful person. She gave us the news that the insurance company has approved the funds for a donor search! Hurray!

So MDA will start checking the donor databases and doing high resolution matching on the preliminary results they told us about earlier. We should start getting some information about the quality of the matches in two or three weeks. Fingers crossed - knock on wood.

Although Ann is walking around today she is having some trouble. During the last round of chemo they asked her to put steroid drops in her eyes. Yesterday they said she could stop, but the effect of the steroid is still there and just killing her eyes. What she describes to me sounds like the worst case of pink eye I have ever had.

She is also starting to display some heavy bruising on her hands and arms. That's alarming to me. I know the mechanism causing it is probably her platelet count being suppressed after this last round of chemo. But it still tears me up to look at it. Ann promises that she will ask the Doctor about it when we get in to see her.

The low platelet level promisies that we will have a transfusion today. Which is ok and will go along with the LP that showed up on her schedule unexpectedly today. I hope that the Doctor has the results of the last LP taken in the hospital during round two today. I also hope its as clear as the other two.

More updates later today.