“It’s nice to see you again,” said
Daniel.
Young Dr. Daniel wasn’t just
exchanging pleasantries. He was
genuinely glad to see Jeff who Daniel describes as, “one of the winners.” We can only imagine a typical day in the life
of an oncologist. He probably sees more
patients at critical stages of diagnosis and disease so that seeing happy,
healthy Jeff provides a nice reprieve.
Dr. Daniel is in his first year of a
two-year fellowship with Dr. Porter and is clearly star-struck by his
idol. “We wait in line for the
opportunity to work with Dr. Porter,” he told us. I mentioned seeing Dr. Porter’s picture in
the US Airways magazine on our way to California. Dr. Daniel had seen it, too, and remarked
that “lots of things are happening right now” and that Dr. Porter had recently
published “another big paper.” Even
though Jeff didn’t qualify for Dr. Porter’s trials, it is a good feeling to
know the man is so accomplished.
Jeff’s relatively minor complaints –
profuse sweating, nausea, leg cramps – are likely attributable to the
immunosuppressant, Cellcept. Dr. Porter
said 3-20% of patients report issues with sweating although he’s actually never
heard any of his patients complain of it.
Nausea is far more common among his patients on Cellcept. Dr. Porter decided to cut the dosage in half
and check Jeff’s liver function again in a month. He feels the side effects will diminish
considerably on this dosage.
Lots of blood was drawn this morning
- more than usual - and when Jeff questioned it, no explanation was
offered. I think maybe he was due for
more extensive testing – maybe the test to make sure his blood is all Nicole’s
(an Engraftment Analysis). Jeff needed food
quickly after “giving” all that blood.
Due to a problem with SEPTA, we’d arrived late and hadn’t gotten our
usual breakfast at Gia Pronto on the ground floor of the Perelman Center. The 7:07 a.m. train from Yardley hadn’t reached
the next stop before police activity forced us to return to Yardley. Evidently, a pedestrian had been hit by a car
on the tracks. Instead, we drove into
the city in rush hour traffic. Still, our
stressful drive couldn’t compare with the bad day that pedestrian was
having.
Jeff acquired a verboten tan while
visiting our youngest son, Keith, who is stationed at Camp Pendleton in
southern California. It was a great
trip! Kim came along with us and it was
good to see brother and sister together.
Keith looked quite mature. We
also visited niece Lissa and her beautiful family and worshiped with them,
leaving a note behind for their congregation: “thanks for praying for Jeff
through his bone marrow transplant and recovery.” We saw a lot of Spanish architecture, got our
toes in the Pacific (well, Kim and I did, anyway) and Keith was glad for our
visit. We left sunny California and returned to a rainy Philadelphia.
Our blog has now been read on five
continents. We are awed by the network
of blood cancer patients and caregivers and pray for all those people who find
us on the web and maybe get some comfort from Jeff’s story. He is, after all, “one of the winners.”
