Clinic

I went to the clinic today. Golly, it's so nice to only need to go twice a week now instead of every day!

We discussed my blood numbers and all of them seem good. I've engrafted, which means my stem cells are turning themselves back into bone marrow. Bingo, I dodged a (very rare) bullet. Kidney function is good too. Judging by the printouts, I'm as healthy as I could be at only 20 days out.

We also got the news about my brother's compatibility for transplant. Turns out he's only a 4:6 match at the preliminary level. This means he's not really suitable as a transplant donor. Our next move is to do a worldwide search through the donor database to see how many hits come back. (I'm apparently gonna be a tough match.)

Ed has decided to put himself in the worldwide database. I applaud his decision. Wouldn't it be strange if he turned out to be my match?

Food has been a problem of late. I don't wanna eat because everything tastes horrible. (HORRIBLE!) So I spent some time talking to the nutritionist this afternoon and we might have stumbled upon a solution. She mentioned that tart/sour flavors are often quite palatable by transplant patients, so I tried something when I got home. Boiled jumbo shrimp with lemon and soy sauce. It didn't exactly taste as it should have, but it tasted pretty decent. Looks like I might have a solution to my palate problem. I can do fishsticks with the same flavorings, as well as Filipino Adobo (chicken with soy sauce and vinegar + spices). I also managed to drink a 20 oz Mountain Dew because the lemon/orange flavor seemed to come out more than usual. So hooray for the nutritionist who mentioned the tart/sour link!

Tomorrow I have an endoscopy procedure at about noon. Seems they wanna look deep inside me to see if my loss of appetite has roots in illness, or if it's simply a reaction to the chemo. In any case, I have to be NPO (nothing by mouth) after midnight tonite so they can drop a scope into places I don't wanna discuss. I hear they're planning to knock me out, which will be a requirement if they're gonna do what I think they wanna do.

If there's no illness (viral or otherwise) that's affecting my appetite, they're reportedly going to give me large doses of steroids (again) to reduce the inflamation of my GI tract. This should make eating more desirable, which will be something I'll enjoy.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.