August 2011 - Day +29

Back at the clinic yesterday for my weekly follow-up. Yesterday was a busy day, I didn't even get my afternoon nap, which made me more tired today. The doctors visit went well and blood counts are continuing to recover. I start a new medication this weekend (another horse pill) to prevent pneumonia. This medication has a weird dosing, I take this medication on Saturday and Sunday only. This medication can lower blood counts in some people so they will monitor my counts and switch medications if this occurs.

Overall I am doing pretty good, at times I want to do more than I am supposed to. I really want to wash my car, asked the doctor about this yesterday and she frowned upon this and said not yet, you are only 28 days out of transplant. I look out and the yard and want to get out the weed trimmer and do some trimming, but again that is a big no no, no mowing or digging. I go for a walk everyday, working back up to a mile, currently walking about three quarters of a mile a day. I want to walk more, but my body reminds me the next day I should not do that.

Back to the clinic next week for another follow-up. Next week they will do some additional blood tests to check the preliminary status of the disease. At day +60 I will have all the same tests done before I had the stem cell transplant (bone marrow biopsy, skeletal scan...) so the doctors can restage the disease.

One question that Jane and I had is how did I loose my immunity to all previous vaccinations and cold and flu strains since my own stem cells were used. From what I understand (Sadie and Jonathan please comment on this if you have additional info) is my stem cells were the baby cells and the baby cells learn the vaccinations and previous colds and flus from the mature cells. So since the mature cells were wiped out, the baby cells could not do any learning, hence I have to be revaccinated. The more I learn, the more I understand how amazing the human body is.