Wednesday, 25th February

Day 55 - Stem Cell Transplant

It was a relatively quiet day at the hospital today.  The general feeling is that Jimmy has gone as low as he will most likely go and now we just wait for him to heal.  It's so nice not having the stress and worry about how much worse things are going to get.

Dr Fine confirmed this morning that his white blood cell count is dropping as was expected without the Neupogen injections, today they are at 3.4.  She basically explained that we don't worry about them anymore now because they will drop and they will also come back up again.  We need to concentrate on the things that must get better now like the Pneumonia which was also better today.  His mouth sores are looking better each day and soon he won't be spiking temperatures as a result of these.  They are working on getting his fluid levels down now.  She also confirmed that the blood in his urine is as a result of a virus but this was clear all day today again and she says that there are only microscopic amounts of blood there now.  As soon as this clears the flush will be taken down and his catheter will be removed.  Jimmy's stomach is still very tender but she says this is also caused by the mucositis.  She said there will be constant viruses as this stage because of the sores and these will affect his stomach but he is on antibiotics so this will run its course.

Jimmy wasn't very talkative today at all and slept a lot but I think this is also good while his body is healing itself.  So from here on I think it is all go, even if it is just little steps.

Wednesday today so Loren and Emma are here, my favourite day of the week and it's not long now and I will have all 3 of my chickens here.  This always makes me feel good.  I have done so much paperwork tonight that I have even shocked myself.  I also just completed my VAT return and in the next day or two I need to start on my financial year end figures.  I have also started going through all the medical bills and was shocked to see that a blood transfusion costs R3000,00 and a bag of platelets is R11 000,00.  We are definitely racking these up!

I am starting to feel a little more relaxed and know now too that as soon as Jimmy is well enough he will be home.  I am looking forward to getting some more nights of better sleep too.

Happy Birthday wishes to Jimmy's Mom for today....the best mother-in-law anyone could ever want.