These seem to be challenging days, with some small successes.
Before this all came up, we had made plans to go camping at Benner’s Campground , a place we’ve gone since the kids were small. We were going to go the week of July 4-8; Beth’s friend Cindy was going to cover at work for her. In exchange, Beth had promised to cover for Cindy this week (July 11-18).
Well, our vacation plans got bumped but Beth felt obligated to keep her promise to work for Cindy. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been able to fully keep that promise, though she’s tried. A couple of nights this week, she’s had to call off – her body is not quite making enough blood, and so what “resources” she has, so to speak, are marshaled to keep her brain and organs supplied. Her bones and muscles tend to suffer for this, and she has complained of deep aches and fatigue.
On the other hand, the Vidaza seems to be working as promised. For her recent blood check, her white blood cell count was normal, and the percentage of blasts (“immature blood cells” which “do not function normally and either die in the bone marrow or soon after they enter the blood”) in her recent tests has dropped from 4% in an earlier test to 2%.
So even though this is just a kind of “pre-treatment” (this being the appetizer and the transplant being the main course, so to speak), the lower her risk level during this phase, the higher the chances of success during the transplant.
S.D.G.
