I'm on my 8th day post transplant, and the last week has been mostly miserable.
The effects of the chemo started appear with lots of GI problems. I have an aversion to several smells and tastes. One of the more disgusting smells is the smell of hand sanitizer, which is unfortunate there are pumps all over the place. I initially would gag trying to drink water. Some of the worst taste changes have gone away, but there are many things that don't taste good even if they're not repulsive. I've had quite a bit of nausea, but the medication mostly keeps it at bay.
Because I'm hard core anemic at the moment, I'm fairly tired all the time. My hemoglobin is at 10.9 as of this morning and still falling. Platelets are at 23 so I'm avoiding anything that can make me bleed. Yesterday I got some mixed signals from the doctor and PA. The PA noted that my white blood cell count went from < 0.1 (lowest it can get) to .1 so that might indicate that I'm on the upward swing. The doctor made a little more fuss about me turning the corner. Sadly, my WBC today is still at 0.1. My absolute neutrophils have been sitting at 0 for about 4 days now. That number will have to be greater than .5 before I'll be discharged.
Despite all that, everyone insists that everything that I'm experiencing is normal and that the progression of side effects, lab values, energy, etc. are all tracking at more or less the same pace as they do for other folks. My counts should start to go up within the next couple of days, and if my platelets and red blood cells can hold out, I might not need transfusions.
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