Transplant Day 4

Today has been another good day. Doc spent most of the day sitting up in the chair. He continues to have improvement on his hands and feet. They were able to cut his pain medicine in half since he is doing so much better. He still continues to need platelets daily. This is very common since they give more chemo and other medicine then he has had in the past to get him ready for the transplant. As before it takes a couple of weeks before the effects from the chemo begin to wear off. His other labs have improved, but his neutrophils haven't begun to go back up yet. The nurse last night said that with the dose they give here it takes a little longer for that to go back up. This time it is very important for that to happen. As I said before that is the first sign that the transplant took. We continue to pray that will happen with no rejection problems.

We found out today that this hospital does perform miracles! Elvis was in the house!! We had a visit today from Elvis. He even sang a couple of songs for us. He was very good. I took a couple of pictures.



-Teresa

Transplant Day 3

Doc has had a pretty good day today. His hands are continuing to show a little progress. The swelling and redness is getting less each day. The nurse thought he might be having fluid on his lungs today, so they took an x-ray again, but it was fine. His temp is still normal and his blood pressure was better today.

Doc isn't eating a lot, but he is getting some carnation instant breakfast down with every meal. He is drinking plenty of fluids. He is still sleeping most of the day, because they still have him on the morphine pump. I don't know if it is the pain medicine or what, but he was very funny most of the day when he was awake. The nurses were laughing a lot of the time while they were in here. I really think it is a good sign when he can laugh about what is going on.

God continues to be good to us. We continue to get calls, commits, cards and prayers from so many. We would like to thank all of you again. We continue to be humbled by all the support you have given us. We pray that all of you are having a great weekend. Please have a good time in church tomorrow we will be thinking about you all. The Beene Family will be visiting Westfair tomorrow and we regret missing them. They are very good and we enjoy them every time they come.

Teresa

Transplant Day 2

Doc has had a mixed day today. His hands look a little better, but unfortunately they are still very sore. They are giving him a lot of platelets and blood, because he has been bleeding from somewhere yesterday and today. They didn't tell me about yesterday until today. Because of everything that is going on his blood pressure has been high today. They have had to give him a lot of pain medicine today which I know he doesn't like. He is the type of person that doesn't even like to take Tylenol unless he really needs it. I just want to cry when I look at his hands and know there is not much that I can do to make them better except pray. The doctors did say they look like they are going in the right direction, but it will take awhile until they are a lot better.

Doc has spent a lot of the day sleeping. I guess that is what he really needs right now. I know his hands and feet are bad right now (they are the worst on the floor and several nurses and doctors have told us that they have never seen anyone with this bad of a reaction), but we have a lot to be thankful for, he isn't running a fever right now, they have still been able to leave him off of ICU watch, his shingles are almost gone and he still has his sense of humor. He continues to joke with the nurses and doctors even though he is in so much pain.

I want to thank everyone for him, for the cards we continue to get, the kind comments on the blog and especially for the prayers. I am still having trouble with the internet here. Unfortunately I keep getting kicked off after being on for a couple of minutes. It takes me a long time to get the blog done because of getting kicked off so much. With this being such a big place you would think that the wireless network would work better.

Teresa

Transplant Day 1

Overall Doc is doing better today. His hands and feet are still really bad. They are very swollen and red. They also have a lot of blisters on them. To me they look like he has burnt them in a fire. The doctors tell me it is a reaction to the pre-transplant medicine. The swelling did go down just a little today, but he still can't do much with his hands. His platelets are still low today even though they gave him platelets last night. They are planning to give him more tonight. The nurse told us tonight that he has hit bottom on all the counts that matter, now they are just waiting for them to go back up to be able to tell if the transplant took or not. We should know that in a few days. Everyone is different on how long that takes. We did get some good news tonight. Doc is doing well enough that they have taken him off of ICU status. Praise the Lord!!! Not much else new to talk about. Doc is still doing a lot of sleeping. A lot of that is because of the medicine they are giving him. Thank you for keeping him in your prayers.

Teresa

Transplant Day 0

Today is considered day zero since they did the transplant today. Doc is still doing well. At first they had a little trouble with his blood pressure going up and down, but within a couple of minutes it was stable. We want to thank Pastor Warren for coming down here to be with us during the transplant. It was really nice having him here. Pastor Warren and I were surprised on how small the amount of stem cells was that they gave Doc today. It only took 15-20 minutes to defrost the cells and put it in him. The medicine they gave him before the transplant started did make him very sleepy for most of the day. They are going to give Doc blood tonight because his hemoglobin is low. As of yesterday his white count was at zero. Everyone has told us that his counts will come back up much sooner this time since he has been given the stem cells from a 24 year old donor. Hopefully he will be able to get out of here within two weeks. Then we are supposed to stay in the area for another week before we are allowed to go home. Doc is still in intensive care, but he is doing much better. They now have his blood pressure under control. We praise the Lord for all He has done and we thank all of you for all of your prayers. Please continue to keep Doc in your prayers.

I am praying that I can stay on the internet long enough to get this blog posted. The last couple of days it has been really hard to get on and stay on. Our wireless signal is very low. We will try and keep everyone informed of Doc's progress.


-Teresa

(She didn't stay online long enough to get it published, but I (Kim) was able to get on and publish for her. Hopefully the connection will work better tomorrow.)

Transplant Day!

Mom just called to say the transplant is done! My dad is still sleeping, and will be for most of the afternoon because of the medication they gave him. There was a little bit of a delay because they didn't have the right staff on the floor, so the transplant wasn't done until about 1pm. Everything went smoothly with the transplant. Now it's just a matter of recovering enough to come home. Thanks for your prayers!

-Kim

Transplant Day -1

This morning started a little rocky again. Doc's blood pressure was low and his pulse was up. They discovered that he had been having an allergic reaction to the rabbit medication he'd been taking, so they've given him a little medicine to help with that. He's swollen from the medicine and that should go away in a few days. Tonight he's been doing better, and he hasn't had any vomiting today.

The transplant is definitely a go for tomorrow. It's scheduled for 11:00am and should take a little less than half an hour. They'll put him to sleep for it because they said the medication feels really strange going in, and it makes a lot of people very anxious. Pastor Warren will be here with me tomorrow. We'll update tomorrow after the transplant.

(Hopefully the internet at the hospital tomorrow will be working! Kim is typing this tonight because we can't get a connection.)

Please pray for the transplant to go well and smoothly, and that God will use this to heal Doc.

-Teresa