Monday, February 20, 2012

Home Sweet Home

It is Monday morning and I received a wonderful surprise yesterday. My white blood cell count came roaring back from .2 to 2.4, which as enough for the doctor in charge to release me to go home. This is great news is two ways....1) it indicated that my transplanted cells successfully engrafted and that my new immune system is forming rapidly. 2) It means I'm home....about 3-4 days earlier than expected.

I'm feeling really good. I have a slight bit of residual nausea, but nothing horrible. I'm rather weak. It takes a bit more effort than I'm accustomed to to walk up and down the stairs. Overall, my mission for the next several weeks is to just take it easy. I'm supposed to take easy walks, which is a bit problematic since I live on a steep hill and even a walk around the block is taxing on the uphills. I would drive myself down to the beach for a nice flat walk, but I'm not allowed to drive. But I'll figure that out.

Overall, I'm very happy to be home.

As for the transplant, benchmark one....the engraftment....has been achieved. Now the question is....did it result in a complete remission of the myeloma. And the answer to that will be several months off. Normally, the answer could be found in a blood test which would show the amount of M-Protein secreting into my system. However, I am a non-secreter, so the only way to measure the amount of cancer in me is to do a bone marrow biopsy. This will probably be scheduled in about 3 months.

You never know for sure, but I'm guessing that I'm in complete remission and will be for a good long time.


9 comments:

  1. Yay, you're home! I'm heading to Texas this week for my daughter's wedding. We will both be appreciating and enjoying family in the days ahead! Take care, Ed,

    Kaye Reznick

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  2. Uncle Eddie,
    Yeah!!-
    Soo..glad to hear the great news!!! Was thinking about you everyday!
    Thank you for the blogs...:-)
    Sooo...glad your home & taking it easy now.
    Enjoy the beach walks...wish it was nice weather here in Chicago!;-)
    It actually is for here, but NOT like there!!;-)
    Congrats!!!
    Love,
    Andrea:-)...(& Ellyn...& Phil:-) we were ALL thinking of you!!!!!
    My mom at least got to Skype you!:-)

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  3. Great to hear Ed! Enjoy being home - Steve Grant

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  4. YEAH! Thanks for making my day!

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  5. Ed, that's great news. I only hope my SCT is as successful as yours. I head into the hospital 1 week from today. Thanks for the updates. It helps to know how other people deal with it on a day to day basis. I just hope they keep the nausea at bay with meds!

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  6. Ed, Sheri in Idaho is my good buddy and I can't tell you how much she and those of us who love her have appreciated your blog. So much useful information even if it's hard to hear sometimes. I'm glad you are through the worst of it. May you take some satisfaction in knowing how grateful we are for your insights and updates. Best wishes to you and yours.

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  7. Glad to hear this Ed.
    Sue Moore

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    1. Thanks for sharing the good news. Take care...Louella

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