Day 60

Well, the last couple days finally showed some improvement in my platelets. They jumped from 32 to 40 on Thursday and then from 40 to 47 on Friday. That's an excellent sign that my bone marrow is settling in.

Spring is starting to settle in!

Unfortunately, today is Saturday, so they didn't do a Complete Blood Count today, so I don't get to see if my platelets jumped a third day in a row. (My white blood cell counts have been staying constant in the low normal range, so once my red blood cell counts start rising, everything will have settled in.)

I'm in again getting Foscarnate, the drug that treats the CMV, a virus that many of us have but only those of us with suppressed immune systems have to worry about. I was getting Foscarnate twice a day until Wednesday, but now it's just once. Of course, that means I'll be here on Saturday and Sunday morning as well as weekdays for two more weeks.

Fortunately, though, the last test says that the Foscarnate has knocked the CMV level from over 2,000 to just over 500. That's a good thing, as CMV is real dangerous if it gets out of control.

Thursday and Friday I also had to do the Photopheresis, which I've already described. It takes about four hours, so I was here all afternoon. I'll do that again Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Then Wednesday through Friday I just have Foscarnate and labs in the morning, so those should be shorter days.

The doctors continue to be real pleased with my progress, but they've been also letting on more and more how concerned they were while I was in the hospital. Apparently, I was more sick than I realized, and the doctors were more concerned than they let on.

We made it to a Bible study last night, which was my first time of really being out in public. I got permission from the nurse practitioner before I went. Not only was it great to be "in fellowship" again, but I got to meet another guy who just got out of the hospital. He used to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the 70's for a couple years, but a couple months ago he had open heart surgery.

Everyone wanted to pray for him and for me, of course. Afterward, I explained to them that praying for patients like us should primarily focus on being able to handle the medication and treatment we're getting. We're already healed from the diseases we've had, but the treatments, and especially the medications, can make life rough afterward.

So I thought I'd pass that on to you, too.