weekly update

The week has been fever free! I think the virus that had invaded my body has finally left. I've been sleeping well .... in fact a little too well. Either I've been trying to catch up on lost sleep from hospital stays, or middle of the night travels, or DHMC back and forths, or just plain fatigue. But I have been quite tired over the past week. I've gotten into the habit of snuggling in my warm, cozy bed till late morning. A shower, some lunch, and a walk make up my day, then the troops arrive home and seem to head in ever direction of just head outside and play. I'm pooped again by 5:00/6:00 and in bed snugglying by 8:00.
Today I seemed to wake up ready to go however. So, maybe I'm turning the corner, again. Well, let me be more clear, "ready to go" means I got up by 7:30/8:00 and didn't go back to bed. I've done things like emailing and check books, pay bills, etc... Not off and about.

I had a good check up at DHMC yesterday (my weekly Wed.) The chimerism report was back (this shows the % of donor cells engrafting against my cells) and it was 100%!!!!! I have complete donor engraftment. This was very exciting news for all of us. My white cells dropped down again from last week, who knows why .... could be meds, allergies, a little bug in me, etc... I'm having suttle signs of GVHD (graph vs host disease) that we'll keep watching. One is nausea. I have a feeling of morning sickness pretty much most of the day, through night, sometimes waking me in the night, but without vomiting. Another is a suttle rash on my legs and arms, and the last is in my mouth; dryness, swollen and red gums and white patching on my inner cheeks. I'll take a good rash, no nausea and be happy with that.

I can't tell you all how appreciated the delicious meals have been. It provided us with meals, left overs (which is so great the next day when I really can't focus on making myself something ... and to just reheat .... I can handle) Troy arrives home by about 4:00 and coaches Sam's Addison United soccer team 2 nights a week from 4:30-6:00 and Tucker's team the other two nights 6:00-7:30. And the nights they don't have soccer, they have either baseball (Sam) or lacrosse (Tucker). The weekends are filled with games and tournaments. Griff's in there too with baseball two nights a week. And in between Troy's spare 1/2 hrs here and there, he mows the lawn, or vaccums, or swiches laundry .... I'm not heading into public places still like the grocery store, so to not have to think food for the whole week is huge!!

Thank you to Terry Gooley, Porter Knight for shuttling Tucker to and from lacrosse, to Shawn for shuttling Sam and Griffin to baseball, and to my parents for EVERYTHING! Shuttling me back and forth to DHMC for appointments, cleaning our house, helping with the kids, just taking the initiative and doing for us! Thank you all!
Until next week -
Pam