High & Tight

Sorry I have not posted in a few days. Things have been just a little bit crazy lately. So here is the post I started yesterday...

Today (yesterday) Nick gave himself a military haircut…by pulling out all his hair! The process of Nick losing all of his hair has started again for the second time. He has managed to sculpt himself quite a look, by removing all of the hair from his beard area, his mustache, and the sides and back of his head. Nick said he wasn't ready to pull out the top, so he now looks like he has joined the military, at least until tomorrow (when all of his hair falls out), then he will look like he belongs to the fearless army of people battling leukemia and recovering from their bone marrow transplants!

Nick has been doing great,despite feeling quite yucky. The side effects of the chemo have caught up with both ends of his GI tract; although, he seems to have gotten through the worst of the nausea and vomiting. His appetite and his “stomach” are not right and probably won't be for a while now.

Mouth sores have moved to the front burner as the #1 problem of the day. These areas are very painful and make it difficult to chew, eat and sometimes even drink. Nick will be on a liquid/soft diet until these sores go away. This usually happens when his counts start to rise (which has not happened yet.) His food choices will be limited due to his inability to chew anything with any real substance to it and I am concerned because he continues to lose weight (down ten pounds in the last five days!)

Nick's white count has pretty much bottomed out – down to 70 (and today 50…basically zero!) Dr. J (attending physician) is pleased with his progress to date and he has no specific concerns. So we wait, watch, and wonder when the magical day will arrive that Dr. J will come in and announce that Nick’s new marrow has finally started to work. Oh what a joyous day that will be! Nick is still insistent that he will be going home on his birthday, September 11^th and the doctors seem more willing to concede that he may be right, despite no factual evidence to support this theory. I pray that he is right!