Saturday Dec. 11th (Day +2)

It's Kristy again writing this blog...Brian is pretty wiped out and sleeping a lot of the day.  He's still in the hospital and the BMT (Blood and Marrow Transplant) docs have already rounded on him this morning.  His creatinine went up to 4.49 but the rate at which it's increasing has slowed, so they are very encouraged by that.  They want to go ahead and keep him here until it peaks just in case he were to need emergent dialysis, then he'd already be here instead of at home.  The kidney doctor who saw him last night said she thought he'd be able to get through the weekend without dialysis and maybe even squeeze by without having any at all.  The factors that will determine if he needs dialysis are if fluid builds up in his body and therefore into his lungs causing him to having difficulty breathing, or if his electrolytes get all out of whack and his potassium gets to a dangerously high point that could cause cardiac issues.  He's still making a lot of urine and his lungs are clear, so hopefully we won't get into any distress on that end of things.  His potassium has gone up a little bit, but it's still in a range that is tolerable, so we'll wait another day and re-evaluate tomorrow.

As far as his other numbers go, his white blood cell count (infection fighting cells) has dropped to 1.7 - they expect it to be zero in another 2 days.  Kind of scary.  His hemoglobin is 7.1, so he will likely need a blood transfusion in the next 48 hours or so because they want his to stay greater than 6.5ish.  Typically they transfuse patients who are less than 7, but I talked him into tolerating a lower count as long as Brian isn't symptomatic!  He said that young, healthy males can usually tolerate hemoglobin counts of 5 but he wasn't comfortable going quite that low.  Platelet count is still holding strong at 145, so he may be able to escape without a platelet transfusion.  Dr. Aljitawi (the BMT doc who saw him this morning) said he wouldn't expect his platelet count to be dangerously low for about a week and then his counts should start recovering, so he may be one of the lucky few who don't need a platelet transfusion (they like to keep it greater than 10).

Walking the halls of the BMT unit, sporting his Guinness PJ's...longing for the days he'll be able to drink it again!

His spirits are still pretty good.  Yesterday we were both pretty discouraged about landing in the hospital, but we're fine with it now.  He still doesn't have any mouth sores, just a horrible sticky coating that makes everything taste awful.  I have managed to make him some blueberry shakes, which he's liked a lot so I'll keep those coming!  I posted some pics a couple of days ago, but we hadn't done any in a while, so I will post a few from the past week or so below and I will attempt once again to post the video of him getting one of the syringes of stem cells!  Ok, so no luck with the video...if anyone has uploaded a video onto a blog before, I would love some helpful hints/advice!

His bag of chemo...comes with lots of warnings

Getting his first dose of melphalan...and hopefully kicking him into long-term remission

Sporting his BA (Benadryl/Ativan) pump - we like referring to him as Diego with the backpack!!

His nurse, Celeste, gave him his first ever and hopefully his last ever chemo

Eating ice chips during melphalan infusion to "cryogenically" freeze the lining of his mouth

Sophie cuddling up to Daddy while he's resting in bed