Day +10: nadir and rebirth

This is the team on rounds. Dr. Voravit, director of the bmt unit, and Natalie the PA are my primary medical team. I like and respect them, which is a good thing, since I've placed my life in their hands for this long, strange trip.


After the transplant I reached bottem. No white cells, cumulative effects of the preparatory chemo and radiation: nausea, headaches, altered taste buds, difficulty eating, intense fatigue. Fevers, likely due to the meeting of the donor cells and mine, releasing a 'cytokine storm'. Still, they have to be checked out with chest x-rays, blood cultures, new and different antibiotics.

Then the bone pain started: deep, pulsing pain in the posterior pelvis, where, it turns out, the body's highest concentration of bone marrow is. Hot packs, showers, morphine, pelvic rocking....and the next day my wbc count had doubled (to 600), and today it had doubled again! So it is a good pain, like labor. And the fevers are down.

Thank you so much for all the kind and inspiring comments on the blog, and the beautiful cards. I read and appreciate every one, and they help a lot.