Day Plus Twenty-Three

A smile is a facial expression formed by flexing the muscles near both ends of the mouth . The smile can also be found around the eyes. Among humans, it is customarily an expression denoting pleasure, happiness, or amusement. A smile can be spontaneous or artificial (when people feel obliged to smile). Happiness is most often the motivating cause of a smile.

Jody called and is all smiles this morning. Her ANC is now (can I hear a little drum role please).............................................................. 2600! This is way beyond our expectations. Unfortunately, I fear Dr.Brunvand and his BMT team will all have to go in for surgery next week. They all have sustained in one form or another; shoulder dislocation, wrist, hand and back pain from their slaps to the back, high fives and chest bumps. "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS WOMAN!"

Jody is so far not showing any side effects or GvH (Graft vs Host). I spoke about this a while back, but to refresh everyone. GvH is one of the biggest side effect to transplant and it will stay with Jody the rest of her life. When someone receives a kidney the body will attempt to reject the kidney as a foreign object. This rejection is done by our immune system. In Jody's case her entire immune system is foreign and her immune system will attack her body in one form or another. This attack can come in the form of an upset stomach, severe cramping, skin rashes, head aches and so on. Jody will have to be on anti-rejection drugs the rest of her life and she will constantly have to monitor her body for a GvH attack. In addition to GvH, Jody will have to redo all of her vaccinations. She will have to go through all of the baby vaccines routine all over again; measles, mumps, rubella, and so on. Jody has an entirely new immune system and each time she receives a vaccine she will have to closely monitor the effects.


In addition to Jody raising her ANC last night, she was able to grow some red blood cells. If you recall her HCT had dropped to 24.6 and she normally gets a transfusion of blood at 24.0 and below. Yesterday she made red blood cells and increased her HCT level to 26.1. Jody also raised her white blood cells to 4.0 and her platelets to 163.  


Jody and I think she will remain in the hospital through the weekend and come home on Monday. We are waiting to hear from the BMT team, so I will have to let you know later.

More to follow.....