Latest Transplant News

Here is the latest on my transplant. I have not yet heard back about my bone marrow biopsy. Everything else has come back OK so far. My kidney tests are a little worse so the infectious disease doctor told me to stop the antibiotic for now. They will probably start a different one in the hospital. For now, they want me to plan on being admitted on Thursday this week. If all goes well, I will have my transplant April 2nd. My donor was supposed to donate the stem cells today and they would freeze them until I am ready for them.

I also hit another speed bump on the road to the transplant this weekend. I developed a rash on the right side of my head and got swelling around my right eye Saturday morning. I have trouble with eye swelling and rashes sometimes from my cat so I originally thought this was from him. It began to hurt by Sunday. I went to my eye doctor on Monday because it was getting worse and he told me that I have shingles! He put me on an antiviral and talked to my transplant doctor. She said it is not uncommon for this to happen. It may be caused from stress or my immune system being down a bit. It should not interfere with the transplant. It has made it harder to sleep, though.

I did get to spend Easter Sunday at church. We had a good service. My grandson, Ian, got to participate in an Easter egg hunt after church and had a good time as well. Teresa made a turkey and we had a big lunch. Daniel was able to come home from SIU Edwardsville for the weekend. It was nice to see him again. We played some games and had a good time.

Michael got a job at McDonald's and started today. This will help keep him busy while I am in the hospital. School, McDonald's and his job cleaning the office should occupy a lot of his time. He is also involved in the youth group at church and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. With all of that I think it will be hard for him to get into any kind of trouble. We have friends who will spend the night here during the week and he may stay with Kim and her husband on the weekends when Teresa does not come home from St. Louis. He is a good kid so I expect he will be fine. I just hate putting him under this kind of stress at his age.

I will probably not add anything to the blog until I am admitted on Thursday. I hope to have an address, room number and phone number by then.

As I mentioned, we had a great service on Easter. God let me spend time with my family and it looks like he is ready for me to be admitted for the transplant this week. Even with my shingles, I know there are plenty out there worse off than me and that God will be there to get me through this as well. I hope he blesses you as He blesses me. I do ask that you continue to keep me in your prayers as I journey into the next step on my vacation.

Doc