It’s been a really long couple of days, when they say “the kids have some pain during engraftment” they are not kidding. We had weaned her Fentanyl down to 0.2, but after yesterday we went back up to .3 again to try and get ahead of it.

Zoe is in great spirits between her bouts of discomfort, and she’s been healing. She had little scratches from where we couldn’t cut her nails and she would swipe her nose at night, some breakdown on her little bum, and of course the mucositis in her mouth and GI tract, and all of that is clearing up rapidly now that she has white cells.

And so, we are now officially engrafted, which means Zoe has had an ANC of >500 for 3 days. I like to think she hit that target out of the park, she went from 496 on Sunday straight to 1096 on Monday, 1290 on Tuesday and now 1766 today. Her WBC count was 2.6 today, up from 1.5. Good work Zoe!

We’re glad all of her discomfort and pain has paid off. It’s been a little anti-climactic honestly, I was expecting it to be more drawn out — though I’m grateful we made it quickly.

Amazingly, we now have to start planning for discharge. We have classes to attend to learn how to be nurses at home, we need to finish weaning Zoe from her pain medications (when the pain actually subsides), and reach a comfort level with the idea of being out of hospital again.

We’ll be required to stay local to Duke for another 80 days or so, to be sure that Zoe is fully recovered before we can return home. This next phase is one of the most tenuous, we have to make sure Zoe remains clear of any infections and that she doesn’t lose her graft.