Transplant Day +9

The past 48 hours has been a roller coaster.  Yesterday Luke had throat and stomach pain from ulcers.  The dilaudid pump dosage was increased 4X from where it was started on Monday.  With the difficultly he was having swallowing they changed what oral meds they could to IV.  His IV pole is now loaded with two power units and 6 pumps. 
He also has a suction line to clear his throat.  Without saying eating has been minimal.   

The chemo Luke received targets the cells that divide the quickest so bone marrow, hair and digestive tract get hit the hardest.  True to that hair is being impacted.  Strange but true, Luke"s hair growth seems to have gone in reverse and he now resembles the members of ZZ top.  

Since Sunday he has received a daily unit of either platelets or blood.  Without bone marrow Luke s not producing his own blood cells so whatever of his blood cells that die off need to be replaced by transfused cells.  Until he engrafts transfusions will likely be a daily event.  

Last night for the first time since transplant he spiked a temperature so they took blood cultures.   Cultures take +24 hours so things are on hold.  This afternoon Luke broke out in a rash on both legs and panic set in as the skin is an organ that often rejects the transplant.  The doctors were called in but the news was encouraging , a rash on the legs is often a precursor to engraftment and Luke starting to produce his own white cells from the transplanted bone marrow.  If that is the case WOW.  Luke is still feeling like crap but hearing that the leg rash was potentially a good sign was a big positive. 

Luke has all of our respect the way he is hanging in there.  There is absolutely no complaining.  He gets up on his own initiative 2-3 times a day and does his hallway laps and religiously pulls out the floating ball to keep his lungs in shape.

Kendall is back in town for a few days.  Leaving he hospital this evening she came upon a woman in the parking garage that had fallen and could not get up.  The Nurse Practitioner in he kick in and she wheel chaired the woman to the ER for treatment.  Nothing was seriously wrong with the woman but she was grateful to have been found by someone that could help her.