Day -2: Last day of conditioning chemo!

I'm just waiting for my last dose of Melphalan, chewing on ice to try to limit the bloodflow to my mouth to minimize mouth sores. The ice therapy goes for another six hours so I should be freezing cold by end of day! My blood counts plummeted today (as expected) - I have only 1.1 white count (normal is 4.0 - 10.0) so infections begin to be the big risk, and the bacteria in my mouth will no longer be fought by the white count. It's all the normal course of the transplant process. My sleep has still been sporadic with all the hydration I am receiving, but at least the showering is done, so fatigue is my m All in all, everything is better than I expected. My brother's last shot of GCSF was this morning, and so his collection begins tomorrow. He just stopped by as my Melphalan got started. I'm off again to the washroom and freezing my mouth.

Day - 3: ALT recovery and washroom craziness

A short post as I only last about 10 minutes between bathroom visits right now! Melphalan requires loads of hydration and bladder medications to try to flush the drug out without too much damage to the bladder. I am also still doing showering for the Thiotepa from yesterday and sucking on ice for the next 6 hours (to avoid blood flow to the mouth for massive mouth sores) so it's BUSY! Little sleep last night as well between all the bathroom visits with my IV pole and showering, redoing my central line dressings, bloodwork, etc. Hopefully I can get in some rest after the super-hydration period is over. The (VERY) good news is that my ALT was actually LOWER than yesterday, down to just above 2 times the upper normal limit. Quite incredible. Anyway, good work for everyone and I gotta run again to the washroom!