Transplant B, Day +1: Some things I've learned

1. It is possible to gain TWENTY POUNDS of water weight in a week. I am so bloated I can barely move.

2. After a transplant, taking a sleep aid is essential. I got not a single wink last night. Tonight I'll try Ativan or Ambien depending on how tired I am. All the messing about with Thaldomide and Dex has thrown my internal clock for a loop.

3. If the embroidery woman in the waiting room tries to strike up a conversation, pretend you are from Kyrgyzstan and don't speak English. I cannot overstate the importance of this lesson.

4. I don't like diarrhea. I really don't care for it at all.

White counts are down to 3.18, but not yet neutropenic. Hemoglobin at 10.6, essentially stable and I hope it doesn't go any lower. Platelets at 91. It seems the crash is coming on faster now than with the last transplant, which is fine so long as the rebound occurs faster as well!

My Potassium is still not cooperating, so I have two more infusers to go. Liver numbers still haywire from the Fluconazole, Velcade and whatever other poison is irritating it, but they aren't alarmingly high so we'll press on. CRP still low, which is good because I have fluid in my lungs (along with everyplace else in my body) and I wanted to make sure that's just a function of bloating rather than anything else. Kidney function is still good.

On the protein side of things, total protein and albumin both fell. The albumin we want to be high, but it's really the ratio of the nasty M-protein to the albumin that we want to watch. Total protein is the lowest it has been (5.1, low normal is 6.5) so I am hoping the M-component of that is now zero...but I know that we won't get an accurate read on that until the labs that are drawn a week from today, so I'm anticipating news on the cancer markers in about 9 days. Seems a long time to wait, but hopefully it will be worth it.

More news as events merit!