Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan

Day 31.  Jon went to get some blood tests done and to check in with Jen, the N.P. who watches over the  patients in the 60 days that follow the transplant. She noted that Jon was there alone and said, "you drove here by yourself?"  He did not say that he had driven us both home when we left on May 3.  We don't say anything that isn't really necessary (like that we used to go home from time to time, very carefully, to lift our spirits).  She was glad to see that he was well enough to drive. It would be hard for her to imagine the kinds of driving he does...loading and hauling equipment with the big 4x4, pulling trailer loads of sawdust.  He is not driving tractors because of the risk of riling up the molds and fungi in the soil, and he is definitely not turning the compost. I guess she doesn't really know Jon, so she wouldn't know what questions to ask, other than the normal ones about eating and sleeping, nausea and fatigue levels.  He is still trying ...

 As hoped, there is very little to report. Jon's main and only complaint is his ongoing struggle with a GI system that was fragile before the transplant and continues to be difficult.  He is still on antibiotics, which cannot help the situation. But he got a good report from his blood test last Friday -- platelets are up to 65 and for the first time in a month, his potassium levels are in the normal range.  All of this can only be good news. There are no next steps in the near future.  We just wait for the after-effects of the transplant to subside, we try to rest enough to allow for healing, and try to figure out which foods are the best for Jon's digestion.  Things have a bad aftertaste too.  While we may be looking at a new normal, we certainly hope that it does not include a difficult relationship with eating.  That would be way too sad. We just got about four inches of rain in the last week, so there has been plenty of time for rest and recuperati...

Jon woke up today feeling much better. Phew. We packed up the apartment, jammed everything into the car, checked out of Hackerman and went to a series of farewell appointments.  First stop, IPOP.  Labs showed that Jon is not an over-achiever after all: his platelet count got to 51.  The minimum goal was 50.  But this was enough to get him graduated. He also got two shots of EvuSheld, the limited-availability prophylactic treatment that protects people like him from getting Covid for a couple of months. It's not a vaccine, it's a monoclonal antibody that is "emergency authorized" for the immunucompromised, shown to be 77% effective. Better than the 0% protection he has had up until now. Then we met with the Nurse Practitioner who works with Dr. Imus and Dr. Borello.  She is the one in charge of deciding if Jon could really go home for good, even though we already knew they had decided. She isn't ready for him to start on the blood thinners until his platelets are...

We came up to Baltimore last night to avoid the weekday rush hour traffic, got a good night's sleep. But Jon woke up this morning not feeling great and today was a rest day. His lab reports showed only good news (platelets still climbing, now at 43) and they didn't see anything wrong with him. But he has been tired all day and kind of queasy. It is a reminder that he is now on Day 18 and he is still recovering from the various assaults of the transplant. There is no way to explain where his energy was coming from for the last few days, but maybe it was just his brain deciding that he had things to do. His body finally is telling him that he can take a minute to recuperate. After lunch I went back to the pool for one more swim, and I took a present with me that we bought online.  We gave them a big wall clock, with big black numbers that you can see from the other end of the pool.  Jon even put a bunch of rolled up duct tape on the back for instant installation. The lifeguard w...