My First Followup

This is an update about my health, so if that’s not your thing, just skip it; otherwise you can click the read more link.

So today was my first followup appointment — they looked at how my immune system/blood is doing and filled in some details of what lies ahead of me.

The good news is my immune system has bounced back quickly, my ANC is now above a normal healthy person so they’re not worried about infection anymore. My hemoglobin is still low, but they had already told me that lags behind the others, and it was moving in the right direction. Platelets were good too, so I’m not a bleeding risk. 

What lies ahead is this: a bone marrow biopsy about a week from now, and then going back into the hospital for 5-6 days two weeks from now to get another round of “consolidation” chemotherapy. I’ll get probably two rounds of that, being able to leave the hospital afterwards, with probably 4-5 weeks between them (maybe less if I recover quickly again). And then after that they’ll try a stem cell transplant, which will be another month in the hospital, because apparently my immune system will again be severely depressed, though they didn’t really say when all that would happen.

So that is the big picture of all this. They say I’m doing really well but there is still a lot ahead of me.

That’s it for now,

cody

2 Comments

  1. Lara April 18, 2016

    Hey Cody! Sounds like all is moving in the right direction and you got some good info on what is to come… At least you have a layout of what the next few months will look like instead of being totally taken by surprise when this all happened… It seems you are in great hands there and they will get you all back on track through theses next steps. I hope you are getting to eat more normal food now?
    Thanks for the updates… We are always still thinking about you and your brothers and mom and sending lots of love and hugs

    • cody April 18, 2016

      Thanks Lara! Yes I’m eating pretty much everything at this point, today they said my immune system was like 80-90% of normal, and the only restrictions were just general good advice: avoid sick people, and wash your hands.

      It is nice having a view of the big picture, gives me something to plan around and prepare for, to some degree.

      Thinking about all you out west too!

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