Month 20

Yesterday (3/27), I had a clinic visit and went and had another CT scan done. The good news is that my pulse-ox reading at the clinic was back up to 91 or 92. It may be at least in part due to the puffers I’m on (Advair and Qvar), but it’s good news regardless of the reason. My doctor said she had talked to the pulmonary specialist a couple of times. She said she can’t see the hypoxia (manifested as the cyanotic look with blue lips, etc.), but because the pulmonary guy is concerned about GvHD, she isn’t going to adjust my meds, even though after cutting my Cellcept in half, my usual GvHD symptoms of sore muscles and fluid retention haven’t flared up much. I didn’t get my blood counts, but apparently everything looks good from the point of view of my BMT doc. Since they’re not changing anything, she says she doesn’t need to see me until May.

One thing I didn’t mention in my last blog entry is that one upside to my recent health problems is that I lost more weight. I really can’t take any credit because it was mostly due to a complete loss of appetite for most of a week. Anyway, although I put a few pounds back on in the last week, I’m now almost 60 pounds less than I was just before the transplant, about 20 pounds under the weight at which I stabilized shortly after the transplant, and 45 pounds less than I was when the edema was the worst around last November.

I feel quite good right now. I haven’t tested lately whether I still get winded so easily, but I feel like it’s not as bad. Mostly, I feel good because my cold is essentially gone and compared to how discouraged I felt when I was sick, I now am able to feel encouraged about the prospect of continued recovery. I scheduled my PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) and ABG (Arterial Blood Gas) for next Tuesday, and then I’m scheduled for a clinic visit on 5/1 and the pulmonary specialist on 5/10. Of course, when the pulmonary guy gets the results of my CT scan and PFT/ABG test, he will contact me if he sees any major concerns.