Going home in a week

Jill's progress continues according to schedule. Her healthcare team is preparing her for her discharge next week. She will meet with her team on Wednesday, February 22nd and if everything looks okay, her discharge date will be Friday, February 24th.

Results from her last bone marrow test show that she is almost completely engrafted (99.6%). Her immune system (lymphocyte count) is 90% engrafted. Needless to say, her doctors are pleased with her progress.

Also a sign of progress, Jill has not needed a blood transfusion this week. The erythropoetin shots she receives weekly are starting to take effect and are increasing her red blood cells.

Scott is visiting this weekend, and will fly out again next weekend to help them with the move back to Boise. As great as everyone in Seattle has been, we are all happy that Sylvia and Jill can get back to sunny Boise.

tom

78 days and counting

Hi everyone. Jill is now at day 78 post transplant and everything continues to go roughly as planned. The doctors have determined that the upset stomach she has been experiencing the last week or so is due to very low grade graft-versus-host disease, not unexpected and not serious. They have begun to treat it with medications. She is also getting weekly shots to stimulate her red blood cell production. If she can produce more red blood cells on her own she won't require transfusions so often.

The plan is still to have her ready to go home at about 100 days post transplant. In the next three weeks or so the doctors will fine tune her meds so that she is ready to leave.

Cheryl, Jerry, Treila and Scott visited last weekend. They took in some sights and played some games which was a pleasant break from the usual routine.

Since there is less and less news to report, I will reduce the frequency of updates. Bye for now.

tom