Day +36

Yesterday was a busy clinic day. Zach, Kristy's brother, came down from Philly and spent most of the day with me so Helen could do some gallery viewing before going home today. I had lots of questions for Dr Koehne at 11am, starting with what was the result of the BK virus test which was done 10-11 days before. After much checking it was determined that it never got to the lab...so no results, instead I had to repeat the test...not too happy about that. After explaining that my symptoms were a little worse he agreed to start me on Cipro (an antibiotic) which maybe should have happened a week ago.

I asked Koehne about when I could leave. Part of the protocol for this transplant is to have 3 IVIG infusions, basically they help my non-existent immune system get artificially enhanced. I get one per month for 3 months and got the first one on Oct 3rd. So by about December 3rd I should be done and barring any other problems (knock on wood) he said I could leave after that (as long as I come back for check ups and Leukocyte infusions). This is fantastic news so I'm going to do all I can to stay infection free and fit as a fiddle with hopes that I can return to KC very early in December. I of course will still have very little immune system and will need to take all the precautions - but I will be at home! So that is the aim, we'll see how it plays out...

At 1pm I had a bone marrow biopsy which went pretty well, though today it is pretty sore. All my blood work looked good so all in all it was a good day at clinic! When I asked Dr Koehne today about going home he kind of laughed, he said in the past statistics for people with Myeloma at 100 days post allo transplant were that 60% were dead, now 0% in his program were dead. Now his problem is that people are feeling so well they want to leave and go home! That is a great 'problem' for a doctor to have!