Day + 7

Last night Bea left early as the long night before and into yesterday took a lot out of both of us.  I was exhausted so by 8:00 I was lights out.  It feels strange going to bed before the sun was down but I got over it quickly.  While most of the day yesterday I battled fever and headache, by last evening I felt good.  I was quick to sleep and slept well until about 1:30.  I awoke for some vitals checks and then I just did a little reading.  I was in a painless, feverless bliss so even though I wasn't sleeping I was a happy man! 

Around 2:00 AM I realized I would need some assistance to help me turn out the lights again so I ordered a light Ambien.  It quickly kicked in and I was out until about 4:00 for the morning blood draw and weigh in.  An hour later they came back for my 780 mcgs shots of  Neupogen to get some engrafting going on. 

This morning's numbers actually came back lower than yesterday so hopefully we'll see a rise tomorrow.  I took more platelets this morning but then managed to hold on to them throughout the day.  Most of today I maintained a low grade fever between 99-101.  Dr. Burt ordered oral Prednizolone 30 mg as this is his normal "taper" from the rATG.  I was getting 125 mg IV Solumedrol because I tolerate it better but because the fever wasn't ceasing he moved me to the Prednizolone.  This kept the fever under control and limited the headache but for some reason my walking still wasn't great.  I think it's the effects from the higher fevers in the past few days which caused dehydration and spasticity.  This steroid makes me very hyper and jittery so I tried to log some miles in the hall to burn some fuel.  I only got 7-8 laps in before I returned.  My left leg was just not keeping pace and even with the assistance of the IV pole no records were broken today. 

I needed to calm down so I ordered some IV Attivan .5mg.  For the rest of the day I have been caught in this weird zone where I need to sleep immediately for 10-15 mins and then I'm up for an hour or so.  One unexpected symptom the past few days is I'm urinating literally every 10 minutes when I'm awake.  Thankfully this subsides during sleep but the urgency is so strong I only have seconds to take care of business.  I'm told, you guessed it,    "This is not something the doctors haven't seen before"...  Tomorrow I will tell them I have begun belching from my ears to see what they say!

So I realize in reviewing this post there's not a lot of positive aspects.  I pretty much described my day as playing the part of a leaky bald dude who's greatest accomplishment was dragging his dead leg around the hall in gown and gloves for a few minutes.  However, please consider the following positive accomplishments:

1  This is the 2nd day in a row the kid from around the corner didn't run by screaming into my room "Hey Howie Mandel your show Flashmob sucks"!! 
2  This is the 15,705th consecutive day I am NOT on ESPNs not top 10 list
3  This is the 4th week in a row I'm not dumping $200 in gas into my SUV :)))))