Day 67

My trip through the 100 days post-transplant has involved a lot of clinic time, and it appears it still will.

They're checking my CMV level today, but they told me that if it's under 200, which is what they want, they still want to give me Foscarnet every day for two weeks. This is my second CMV flare-up, so they don't want to take any chances.

By Brendan Fagan, spotted in Selmer, TN

So my clinic visits will continue to be daily, even on weekends, until day 81 or so ... assuming that my CMV level has dropped from 280 or so last week to under 200 this week. Otherwise, even longer.

Better safe than sorry, they say. I happen to agree with that.

On the other hand, my blood counts have been awesome. My red blood cell level, which on a normal person is about 45%, has been at 35 or 36% for four straight days. It hasn't been over 32% since the transplant, so that's a great sign that the red blood cells are kicking in. My platelets are up just a bit at 70, and my white blood cell counts continue to sit in a decent normal range.

Blood system's working! Now we just have to teach it to attack viruses like CMV rather than body parts like my skin and GI tract.

It seems a little like breaking a horse.

Thank you to everyone for the encouraging words from day 65.

I got a note from my friend Richard in South Africa who was on day 11 of his transplant, and he already had a 2.1 white blood cell count. He got adult bone marrow for his transplant, so his count recovery will be faster than mine. I'm excited for him, as he's handling these first few days really well. Please feel free to pray for him. The road in front of him is completely unpredictable, other than that he's going into it with a great attitude, which is the best weapon of all.

It feels neat to be part of this community of people going through bone marrow/stem cell transplant (see tab at top if you don't know what that is). Michael in Ireland sends me advice or encouraging notes almost every day. I dream of getting to go visit him and his family after this is all over.

There's several others. Tamara just gave us an update (see "Our Journey" in my bloglist) and there are a couple other blood cancer blogs. I'm scared to mention any others, lest I leave only a couple unmentioned and offend someone.

It's like a whole separate world that I spend a lot of my time in, then emerge to interact with my old world, old friends, and business needs that press at me here and there. My son's getting married April 29, and I've been promised freedom from the clinic for that, but my daily visits have been extended into April already. So, I have just the slightest worry, but they've assured me they'll set me free for the wedding and the prep for it.