It's day +56 and I'm doing my best to be patient. I'm ready for day +100 and the removal of my catheter.

As of now, I still go to clinic three days a week and on my off days, I get hooked up to an IV of magnesium at the apartment. I have a little pump that fits into a shoulder bag along with the bolus. I constantly have to remember to pick it up and move it whenever I get up to do something.

I started physical therapy this week and it was pseudo torture. My lower body is stronger than it was with the last transplant, but my back and upper body are weak. My PT from the last go round commented on how much weaker I was. She was honestly surprised. Chemo can do that to you. My first day of therapy included an evaluation and the second day was abbreviated because I got too worn out to complete the full twelve exercise circuit. I'll build up to it. For now, I'm just sore from the workouts.

My BK symptoms continue to improve and I'm able to sleep for longer intervals at night. There's not much more going on in my world right now. I'll post again in a few days, even if nothing is going on.

Ever since this entire affair started almost two years ago, I've been passing the time looking forward to small milestones. They can be anything that I thought I might never be able to do again; events that are large or small.

This past Sunday, Chris left me laying on the couch to go do some laundry. I must have fallen asleep, because an hour later he wasn't back and the facility is on site. I was preparing to take another nap when the doorbell rang. I found Chris standing on the other side of the door holding a birthday cake. He'd snuck off and surprised me.

So, I managed to live to 34 and I'm looking forward to 35 plus 30 or 40 more years.

The last specimen I donated to MDA has yet to grow any bacteria. And yet, I still have symptoms. What's a logical girl to do, but assume that its viral? That's not the official word, since those results aren't back, yet.

The culprit may be the BK virus which lurks in everyone's bladder. Why this little critter would want to hang out in a receptacle for the body's waste, I don't know. The symptoms mimic the worst urinary tract infection you've ever had with extra symptoms. There's blood in the urine and you express blood clots through your urethra. Skippy.

There's nothing that you can treat it with. You just have to wait it out. My rounding APN told me I was lucky that I wasn't on steroids, since it would be much worse. Lucky me.

I should know for sure in the next few days, but I'm fairly certain on my own.

I had to go in to clinic to get another dose of amikacin. I can't lie, this stuff makes me feel funky. Last night I woke from a sound sleep vomiting violently. Luckily, I managed to propel myself over to a receptacle before I did too much damage.

My pharmD let me know that the new specimen hasn't grown anything yet, but they were able to see lots of lovely bacteria on a slide. Good times. She also hinted that we might need to extend the amount of time I'm on cipro. I'll do whatever it takes to knock out this infection, but I seriously wish that it would just resolve itself sooner rather than later.

I have the next two days off and plan on watching scary movies with Chris. Monsterfest, here I come!

After nearly a week of being on cipro, I still have symptoms of my infection. It's not very comfortable and when I spoke to my transplant doctor and pharmD, they both agreed that it was time for an IV antibiotic. I got a dose of amikacin which I'm really hoping takes care of things. My pharmD will be checking in with me tomorrow morning to see if my symptoms have gotten better. If not, then I'll have to go back in and get another dose of amikacin.

There is another theory making the rounds about why I still have symptoms. My doctor is starting to suspect that there may be a virus lurking underneath it all. It's a virus that everyone has that's not harmful to people with a healthy immune system. It's a new one for me and I'm hopeful that it's not causing me problems. New specimens were drawn and we'll know next week.

I forgot to ask about the missing test results today, so I'll have to do it tomorrow. Things are moving along and I've been prescribed another medication to deal with the bacterial infection. I was given the warning that it would turn my urine an electric orange. Let's just say that I was glad for the heads up, because I couldn't imagine my own reaction when faced with pumpkin colored urine. I know the phone call would have been frantic.

I'm scheduled to see Dr. Kebriaei tomorrow and I have a few questions for her about various and sundry things. We'll see what we see.

We had clinic today and the results for one of the tests came back positive for a bacterial infection. I've been prescribed Cipro in addition to the Z-pak I'm already taking and I'm hoping that this will clear it up. I'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out about the other test. My temperature continues to fluctuate, but we're keeping an eye on it.