Day Zero Plus Sixteen – I’m comin’ out!

Today was a quiet day.  No visitors.  Jeff drifted in and out of sleep for most of the morning.  He says he still isn’t sleeping very well at night but he sleeps very well during the day when I am there.  I teased, “My mere presence is enough to relax you.”  He said very seriously, “It is.”  He is not just being sweet; isolation is very isolating.  Although I try to touch him, my rubber gloves to his skin or to his clothes, we both look forward to engraftment when we can kiss and touch again.  

Jeff’s ANC count was back to 360 today which is what it was on Friday.  One nurse said she has seen some patients’ ANC counts jump as much as 1000 points in one day!  Dr. Ahmedi estimates engraftment by Wednesday and Nurse Christina estimates Jeff will be going home by Thursday or Friday.  It’s getting close now! 

Alana was making the bed today when Jeff began whistling in the shower for her benefit, “I’m Comin’ Out!” (Diana Ross).  Alana looked up at me with a shocked expression and then laughed heartily.

The nurses invited me to their “barbeque” today.  It was a covered dish luncheon.  One other family was invited, a young mother and her two-year-old daughter, who have been visiting her father every day for about as long as Jeff has been here.  The nurses all made us feel so welcomed and they are all so compassionate.  Jackie Smith, the transplant coordinator, was there with her two daughters.  The nursing staff often doesn’t get much of a break for lunch and it was nice to see them sitting down for a meal together.  There was an urgent announcement that emptied the room in a flash.  It was the young mother’s father who’d had an emergency of some kind.  Most of the nurses returned shortly thereafter. 

Jeff rode his bike twice today and he did his leg exercises twice.  They exhausted him but he did them.  He watched part of the Phillies game and laughed when Nurse Alana stuck her head in the door to ask who was winning.  He realized he didn’t even know who the Phillies were playing!  I read some of my blog entries to him, we watched some YouTube videos on his iPad, we did some short brain teasers, and we watched part of a movie.  And we talked about what it will be like to be home again.