January 3rd, 2011 - Day 10

Hi everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays.

I can't believe it's been 10 days since transplant. WOW! Some days it feels like a month and some days like yesterday. We are still patiently waiting for engraftment. It could basically come any day now.

Day 8 brought a few things... first Alex had platelets in the morning and then 2 units of blood. The doctors are concerned about how Alex's surgical site looks (assholes!) and now are requiring a once a day dressing change with antibiotic ointment. This is NOT a fun process for Alex. Poor kid. Since her surgical site is looking red and angry the doctors put her on some more antibiotics just in case. Well... they started up a new antibiotic Vancomycin and Alex had another allergic reaction. She turned bright red and started getting more chills. They quickly got it under control with demerol and hydrocortisone. I don't think the premeds were done early enough. It's really unfortunate because Vancomycin is a great antibiotic so hopefully they'll be able to use it in the future.

Day 9 was pretty uneventful. Thank GOD! The dressing change is always the worst part of the day. Most of the time Alex just cries through it, which is awful to watch. I can't wait until this damn thing heals up. Alex was able to have a few visitors yesterday. My best friend Cindy spent the day with me up here yesterday. We always have fun together and I think Alex enjoyed the day with us. Also our great friends, Bob and Pam, came up to see Alex. It was a very nice visit. I think Alex really enjoyed the time with them. It's always good to see her laughing.

That brings us to day 10... not much going on yet today. Alex's glucose levels are high so they are watching that. They are going to spread out the IV nutrition over 15 hours instead of 12 to hopefully make that a bit better. It's a common problem with IV nutrition. Also... Alex is retaining a lot of water so they've had her on Lasix to help remove some of the water. This was working great a few days ago, but now it's not doing a whole lot. Alex's counts are doing nothing. Her platelets are down again today so I wouldn't be surprised if they will give those today. Her red blood count is holding pretty steady for the last two days so that is good. Everything else on the lab list is a big fat ZERO! rude rude. Well, that's about it to report today. Life on the inside is pretty boring. But boring is good up here :o)

Thanks for tuning in... I will update more in a few days.

This is a funny joke with us... I tease Dan with some of his wardrobe choices

This is what Alex has to brush her teeth with right now. A toothbrush is too hard on her poor mouth.

This is Alex's IV pole... 8 different things running into Alex right now.