Counts are still low

I talked to Stefan this morning. He sounded very tired and down. Instead of going home today, as he'd hoped, he's stuck for at least another 48 hours. Yesterday early evening, they took him for an x-ray and some lab work, to see what sort of infection was causing him to spike a fever (near 101). The preliminary results should be back tonight around 8pm, but the final results won't be back till Saturday 8pm.

For now, they are giving him IV antibiotics. His wbc came back stronger today - back up to 0.3 (it dropped down to 0.1 yesterday). His hemoglobin is down to 8.4, so he will undoubtedly get whole blood today; he will probably also get platelets. So he's not "unattached" any longer - Ms. Ivy Pole is following him around again.

He had high hopes that he'd be home before the weekend, but his non-existant immune system foiled his plans. Unless his numbers climb a whole bunch in the next 24 hours, I don't think he'll be home this weekend. He's a little disappointed that he can't watch the Superbowl on his big screen TV at home... but it's not like the Bears are playing or anything. So he misses seeing the game on the big TV - not all that big a deal. With any luck, he'll be home on Monday or Tuesday - so he can say he was in the hospital for 3 weeks.

Today is day +10, meaning day 10 after the transplant. (The day of transplant was day 0. Every day before that had a negative number, so that the day he went in to the hospital was day -8. It should have only been day -7, but because they didn't start his chemo until after 5pm, he had an extra day to wait for the transplant (which was done in the morning).) Counting both the Monday he went in and today, today is day 19 that he's been at NMH.

The typical time to see the numbers go up steadily is between days 10+ and 14+, so he's on track, at least according to what Dr. Olga Frankfurt has told him. Back in December when they were talking him through the transplant procedure, he was told that he should expect to be in for one week of chemo, then the transplant, and then roughly three weeks of observation after the transplant. But he was also told that folks with good results and minimal side effects could be out in two weeks... two weeks after the transplant, not two weeks total time. So he's on track for that time frame.

Let's everybody keep your fingers crossed that Stefan has a productive weekend. Send good, strong, positive thoughts his way - he needs all the help he can get to raise his counts up! Thank you for keeping Stefan in your prayers. We know that He has heard our prayers because of all the help He's given Stefan already. We just need a little more help getting through this last bit. This hard part of the journey is almost at an end - next we begin the long road to full recovery.

.
Don't forget to stop by Daniella's blog, Come Sit By The Fire. There's a gallery of 'Blast from the Past' photos - see if you can find yourself!