Day + 12

Happy Monday everyone. I hope that by now you are all coming out of your weekend fog and ready to be productive, where ever you are. Better late then never right?

So in the world of Leukemia, the only four words better than “Congratulations, you’re in remission”, are “Congratulations, you are engrafting”. Engrafting is a word used in the world of the stem cell transplantation. It means the stem cells that were introduced to the host body via transplant have embedded into the bone marrow and started producing new cells. This usually takes 15 days or so from the time the host body cell counts go to 0. In my situation, day + 3 was when my counts hit 0.

Well, the night before last at 3am Sunday morning, my nurse walked in and told me those 4 magical words, “Congratulations, you are engrafting”. That’s right, I started engrafting on Sunday, day + 11. But in reality it is actually Day + 8 due to the fact it took my counts 3 days to hit 0 after the chemo/radiation treatments. I seriously can’t put into words what it means and feels like to hear those words. At that point, my nurse could have been wearing white wings and a golden halo. That is how much it means to hear those words. All the pain I went through over the past 4 months. All of the anger and resentment. All of that time being curled up in a ball waiting for the misery to pass. All of that goes away when you hear those words.

Now there is still a long way to go, but my doctors have all told me that it is pretty amazing to see so much happen in such a sort period of time. They all feel the prognosis is extremely positive based on what they are seeing now. As of today my white cells are at 4,500, hemoglobin is at 10, hematocrit is at 28.9 and platelets are at 37. Those are all up from the day before and are misleadingly looking like healthy counts. Misleadingly because the cells being produced are very immature. It could take up to 3 months for those cells to mature into the cells of a normal, healthy person. During those 2-3 months is when it is most critical, which is why it is so important for Evey and I to find a place down here. It is just too risky to be longer than 15 minutes away from the hospital in case I come down with a fever or any other sign of rejection. We are still looking for a place but getting closer.

The bummer about all of this is that if we had a place down here, I could get released from the hospital on Wednesday of this week. But because we don’t have a place for me to go to, and Orange County is absolutely out of the question, I have to stay in the hospital until we have a place. That is how serious the next 3 months are going to be. I’ll tell you what though, if that is my biggest problem at this point…I’m stoked.

That’s it for now guys but as you can see much more to come. Feel free to lob any questions my way. Until then, take good care of yourselves and we’ll catch up soon.

-Kurt