Things are fairly quiet around here. Zoe is growing cells, and we’ve swapped again so that I’m back in the hospital to get Michelle out with Maya for awhile. We had to extend her stay unexpectedly due to Maya getting a little fever, and needing to wait until that was long gone before having me come in.

Zoe is managing everything really well it seems, she is on .2 of Fentanyl at this point, very little pain that we have noted but still very tired and stomach somewhat upset. We’ve added a Zantac-like medication to help with that. She is still not nursing, still on TPN, but we’re hoping that will pick up in the near future.

Preparations have begun for discharge, which is really mind-boggling. I swear we just got here! Nevertheless it can’t be anything but a good sign that we’re preparing to move to outpatient services.

We’re in no rush, however, to get out of the hospital. The next phase is one of the most daunting in some ways, much of the “danger” associated with the Stem Cell Transplant is related to infection, graft failure and Graft Vs Host Disease.

There is a lot of “tweaking” that will take place as we monitor her graft to be sure that she has an opportunity to get her new cells established and work toward a (hopefully) 100% donor immune system. This means going on or off of certain medications to strike a balance between infection protection and doing no harm to the graft. This will be perhaps the most important phase, the one after which we might be able to feel some confidence that Zoe is “cured”.

We’re not sure yet when we’ll be discharged, but it’s looking like the end of next week, or more likely the week following. After that, it’s back to daily clinic visits here at Duke.

Step by step to the end.

ps – WBC up to 5.5, ANC up to 3905 (into normal range!). Hard to believe.