One of our day trips should actually
be called an evening trip. Jeff is on
two medications which make it very easy to sunburn so we left late in the
afternoon to avoid the sun. We drove to
Asbury Park, NJ, home of “the Boss.” We ate
dinner at a Cuban restaurant, walked the boards and the beach a little, then
drove home. It was very nice.
We painted Keith’s room – ceiling,
closet and two coats on the walls all in one day with ample time for Jeff to
nap while the paint dried between coats.
It is a small room and it is rewarding to have finished the project. Well, we still have not had a chance to put
the room back together again. Of course,
there is no hurry since Keith won’t be using it until after boot camp – another
eight weeks.
The biopsy was Jeff’s one-year-from-transplant
biopsy, a little late. Drs. Rager and
Porter do not expect any weird results.
This is just a milestone biopsy, protocol. Dr. Porter even went so far as to say, “This
might be the last one you’ll ever need.”
Jeff was supposed to have his “childhood” immunizations, too, but the
office was very busy. It was Tuesday the
3rd, the day before a holiday, and Jeff’s 2:30 appointment ended up being after
4 pm. When we left after 5 pm, the office
staff had all left already. The shots
are given in the chemo treatment area across the hall; we never made it
there. The immunizations will have to be
done at his next appointment at the end of the month.
In the meantime, Jeff will have a
dexa scan to check his bone density.
This is typically done for all women at one year post transplant and for
men who have been on steroids for a prolonged period of time. Dr. Porter also wants Jeff to have another pulmonary
function test to make sure there is no lung damage from the pre-transplant
conditioning. This will be his third; he
had a baseline done before transplant and one at about 8 months which actually
showed better results than pre-transplant.
He also needs to see the ophthalmologist about his blurry vision which
could be due to his meds (a couple of them carry warning labels about blurry
vision) or treatment or… his age, perhaps. Dr. Porter keeps mentioning how common cataracts are among transplant patients.
Dr. Porter noted that Jeff’s rash was
a little worse than the last time he saw him.
I pointed out that some spots are closer to his eyes and mouth. That worries me a little because I have heard
of cases where it gets in those places.
Neither Dr. Rager nor Dr. Porter is too concerned about it, confirming
that waiting until the 18th to see the dermatologist is o.k. I guess skin GVHD doesn’t progress too
rapidly or if it does, they’ll see him sooner.
Our vacation was three days in
Lancaster. On the way out there, we
stopped at Shady Maple to shop and have lunch.
The trip exhausted Jeff and he took a good, long nap at the hotel when
we arrived. We couldn’t have squeezed more
fun into the next two days! We tasted
wine at a couple of wineries, toured an historic home (Suzanne Wright’s in
Columbia), outlet shopped, ate at a stainless steel diner made the year we were
both born, swam, etc. We did not feel
the need to eat at the Smorgasbords (besides, Jeff isn’t supposed to do buffets
and, well, family style with strangers, maybe not?) so one night we had dinner
at a lovely inn and another at a chain restaurant Jeff had never tried, Texas
Roadhouse. We ate Texas-style food in
Amish country with a waitress named Fataweh (from India). Gotta love cultural diversity!
We saw lots of buggies, lots of
quilts, lots of farmland - soul soothing, peaceful.
No comments:
Post a Comment