2007calendars, home





February 6, 2007 , Day 112


Friends,

Well, we had a good week this week. Our doctor visit today was interesting. Once we got home, things started to get a little scary. But first, let me describe our week.

We had a busy week. I walked for an hour in two sets on Friday. I have been doing a lot of walking as we run errands almost every day. Today, I rode my bike for 45 minutes for the first time. Last week, riding for 30 minutes was not long enough to do all that I want to accomplish on my bike, so I increased the time to 45 minutes. It went real well. Menchie and I each got one of those exercise balls. My back is still sore. It is a great workout for the core. My core strength is improving a lot, but I have a long way to go. I only did one workout so far on the ball, a couple days ago, but my back is still a little stiff. I also signed up to be an honored teammate for the Team in Training Tahoe Ride. They had their "Expo" Saturday and we spent the morning there and met a lot of the new people. That was fun.

As I said, my doctor visit today went well. They were very upbeat and happy with my overall condition. My tongue continues to get better, although mild GVHD persists. My blood counts are going up again. Unfortunately my creatinine is creeping up a little and is now at 1.5. The results of the chimerism test revealed that my bone marrow is completely clear of leukemic cells, and 100% of the blood cells are my brother's. Based on that, they decided to just let my stem cells keep working as is with no stimulants or additional cells. All good news. My digestive system seems to have recovered completely, and they discovered what caused the blood in the urine. It is a virus called the BK virus. The doctors didn't seem worried about it at all. There were a few clues though that they were a little more concerned than they were letting on. They ordered a urine test today. I have never done this before on a regular doctor visit.

When I got home I decided to do some research on the BK virus. That was the scary part of the day. The BK virus infects 60 - 80% of the human population of the world, and is asymptomatic normally. It normally resides in the kidneys. However, in immunocompromised people, it can cause some problems, one of which is bloody urine. It can also cause various other kidney and urinary tract problems. It can get into the brain and cause confusion. Another common symptom of BK infection is gradually rising creatinine levels, indicating kidney damage. There are several possible treatments for the virus, but all are rather experimental, except for a reduction in immunosuppressive drugs, so that the body's immune system can deal with the virus. Ultimately, the virus can cause fatal kidney failure. I believe that the urine test is to see what the viral load is, and they are trying to determine what course to take in treatment of the virus if it is still in my system. Pretty scary! I guess we shall see when the urine test results are in.

In the meantime, I will continue working out and trying to increase my strength, and hope for the best. Maybe in a few days I will get a call from one of my doctors and they will tell me to reduce my cyclosporine. Of course, the problem with that is increased chance of GVHD, which can be very serious.

They decided I needed to continue getting Pentamadine treatments, and they expected me to get it today. Unfortunately, they never told us. We have now scheduled 6 more treatments and will plan on 4 more after that.

My next appointment and next pentamadine treatment will be next Tuesday. Nice to see the platelets coming up again!

Lab results: Counts seem to be going up.

Lab Results

Blood Cell Type

Normal Low

01/16

01/23

01/29

01/30

02/06

WBC 4.5 5.1 3.8 3.1 2.9 4.6
RBC 4.3 3.17 2.59 2.69 2.51 2.48
HGB 13.9 11.2 9.2 9.6 9.1 9.2
PLT 130 25 18 24 21 32


Have a great week!

Ted and Menchie
tw@wilcoxent.com
mench@wilcoxent.com
www.wilcoxent.com

2007calendars, home