treasures in secret places

Hi and thanks for reading and praying! My Sol Sister was here for a little over 2 weeks and we had a good time going down to the lake, exploring Capitol Hill, trying out some local eats and hanging out. We have done quite a bit of traveling together and we always laugh alot and get on really well. I'm super thankful for her and that she's able to work remotely (I found a silver lining!) and has been since March. Now Rick is back and my heart is both soaring and peaceful. I am now 28 days post-transplant and my blood numbers look good! My neutrophils (which are what they look at to measure your ability to fight off infection), are up to 1.14. While this is still outside of the normal range, it's enough for them to relax about things like going to get a haircut, etc.  My platelets are at 93, and while still low, is the highest they've been in over 20 years as far as I know, and my hemoglobin/hematocrit is 9.0/26. They actually do blood transfusions here when a person has ...

I'm on Day 15 now. Because my transplant started at 11:30 pm on July 2, and ended at 4:30 am on July 3rd, I have two "Day 0's".  Engraftment usually takes place between 14 and 21 days. I have had blood tests every day in which they measure my hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelets, neutrophils, magnesium, sodium, liver and kidney enzymes. To see if I'm engrafting, the thing to watch is the neutrophils. These are the portion of the white blood cells that are your first line of defense against infection. They are supposed to be somewhere between 2.0 and 7.3 and mine have measured between 0.01 and 0.03 but have never gotten down to zero :) ! This is by design: they wiped out my existing immune system and bone marrow, so until engraftment (when the transplant marrow begins to grow and develop in my body), I have no way of producing more of the cells, because it's the marrow that has that job. However, at the same time, I'm on medication that prevents "Graft ...

Okay! Another update! 7/7/2020 Day 5 After 3 days of chemo, a slew of medications (and medications to counteract the side effects of the medications--Grrrrrrrrr), and a couple of small doses of total body irradiation; I received my bone marrow cells on the night of July2/early morning of July 3.  I only had to spend that night at the hospital, and while I appreciated the staff and my big beautiful room with a view of the water and Husky Stadium, I am NOT a hospital dwelling person, and am SOOOO thankful that they switched my regimen to a less toxic one with 2 1/2 weeks less time in the hospital.  The first few days during/after the transplant were pretty rough. I had a headache from an immuno-suppressant drug, swollen parotid glands which were very painful, and was vomiting with little warning.  Those days are behind me! Yay God! He has been so very faithful through this entire process. Which is really so encouraging to me, because the whole fact that I'm going this...