Day 11

When I talked with Jeff this am on the phone, and asked how he was, he said,"Pretty good." It has been at least 12 days since I have heard that response. He slept well last night. Stated he thought his night nurse was actually retarded. Dr Matous came in this am and announced, "We have some engraftment." His absolute neutrophil count is 280. That is one part of the white blood cell count and the one that is most telling for the dr's. "0" was what we wanted for awhile because of the chemo--to kill the wbc's and now the goal is increasing neutrophils. He said we need to start to watch for graft vs. host disease now. That is what will be the biggie for the next 100 days and on. The first 100days is the acute period of time and then they call it chronic graft vs. host following that time. Fevers, skin rashes, gi problems and liver problems are what we are concerned about now. He got to leave the floor today for his chest xray. Lovely lasix was again administered to help get rid of extra fluid. Also compression stockings are on now to try to help control the swelling in his feet. An echocardiogram was done this afternoon to see if he has any extra fluid around his heart. He is only taking the tincture "as needed now." He has only had one dose today. Platelets were given again this afternoon. Sue came up from Monument. She liked seeing how well he was doing. Jeff's responses are appropriate and his speech is clearer today. That makes me feel better as well. We just walked 15 min. and now he is getting his antibiotics. I did my first load of laundry in 3 days today. That is a record!

Platelets--21; Red blood cells--29.8; White blood cells--0.2; ANC--280