Hospital Discharge scheduled for Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 3, 2006, I will be discharged from the hospital and will be going home for the remainder of my recovery. This is great news on two accounts.

1. I’m going home


2. More importantly it says the Stem Cell Transplant has gone well and the graft of my stem cells is successfully under way.

The high dose chemo essentially wipes out all your blood cells: whites, reds, platelets, etc. One of the measurements of white blood cells is ANC or Absolute Neutrophil Count. Neutrophils are the most numerous of the white blood cells. They make up about 56 percent of white blood cells and are the “soldiers” that fight infections. They eat or gobble up the infectious particles (bacteria) in your body.

As expected my ANC got lower and lower until it went to zero on DAY +7 (Dec 29, 2005). On DAY +9 (New Years Eve) it rose to 200, DAY +10 it was 800 and today, DAY + 11 it was over 2900. These Neutrophils are from my transplanted stem cells and the rapid increase is an indication of the success of the grafting of my stem cells.

With an ANC below 1000 one is considered Neutropenic and is vulnerable to opportunistic infection. I had to wear a mask when I left my hospital room during those miserable neutropenic days.

I’m a very happy guy to be going home tomorrow. There’s still about two months recovery before my blood counts come all the way back and I am back to full strength. The next two weeks are the most critical and I’ve got to be careful with diet and environment. My white counts will still be far lower than the average healthy person and it will be easy to pick up an opportunistic infection.

At any rate it’ll be more fun to be careful from home than from the hospital.

Thank you to everyone who has called and emailed. Your prayers and good wishes have been a great pick me up and I will return calls and reply to emails in the not very distant future.