Klingons and Cellcept

Two weekends in a row Jeff developed a goose egg on his forehead (and one behind his ear) without having injured himself in any obvious way.  He didn’t walk into a door, didn’t hit himself with a hammer, didn’t bump heads with me – or anyone else.  A giant bump just popped out mysteriously over the course of a quiet evening at home and took a couple of days to disappear.  On both occasions we had been in the hot tub an hour or so before we noticed the bumps so on a third weekend, we gave the hot tub another try.  No goose egg.  Jeff was relieved to not have that Klingon look. 

Last Friday we went to the Perelman Center for Jeff’s labs.  While we were there we went over to Penn’s Rhoads 7 to see our friend, Janice, from Gilda’s Club.  We had to wash our hands before entering her room and Jeff was repulsed by the smell of the familiar hospital soap but he washed anyway.  Janice had had her autologous stem cell transplant the day before and she was sitting up in bed looking great!  Autologous stem cell transplant is a much shorter process than BMT.  Janice was admitted Tuesday, had two days of chemo and then received her own cells from two small bags containing “pale red” blood product.  We did not intend to stay long with Janice because we never expected that she would be able to carry on a conversation.  But she could! 

Janice had some nausea but otherwise didn’t feel too badly.  When the nausea got the better of her, Jeff and I excused ourselves to give her some privacy.  I returned to the room when it sounded as though things had settled down a bit.  Jeff was not keen to go back in, though.  He wandered the halls and found his old nurse, Alana, who had prayed with him during his stay here.  She did not recognize him.  He told her, “You’ll remember me when you see my wife.”  He brought her to Janice’s room. 

When Alana saw me, she shouted, “Oh, I know you!”  She hugged me and gushed over how well Jeff looked.  I told Jeff he should have thrown his head back and made himself look sickly so that Alana would have an easier time remembering him.  Alana said she was having a hard day (we didn’t want to think about what that means in oncology) and that Jeff cheered her up.  She took us to the nurse manager’s office and introduced us to the young woman, new to the job since Jeff’s stay nearly two years ago.

We left Penn and headed to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch and some cheese shopping.  Home by train.  A tiring day.

Yesterday Jeff’s lab results were finally posted on Penn’s online system.  I checked them from work and called Jeff to report.  “Your hemoglobin is 14.  That’s about as good as it has ever been since transplant.” 

“What’s the bad news, then?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s really bad but your eosinophils are elevated like you are having an allergic reaction and your liver function tests are high, too.  How long do you want to wait to call Dr. Porter and see whether you need to do something about that?”

We debated whether to call immediately or wait and see if the doctors were concerned, too.  We decided to wait but by the end of the day, Dr. Allison called Jeff to put him back on Cellcept.  She was not overly concerned.  Labs were ordered for 2-3 weeks from now to make sure the Cellcept is working to keep things in check.

Thinking of Jeff’s donor and hoping she has a Happy Easter.  Happy Easter to one and all!