Thursday, May 28, 2009

guest post: growth factors

hey. it's johanna here. I'm just fillin in for steve so he can have a break.
we had a pretty dismal day, most of it spent waiting at the doctors office for a plan of care.
the plan is, growth factor every day to stimulate his body to make cells. I don't know a lot about it yet, but we know there is some risk that his "host" system will come back with the leukemia too. There was also talk of another transplant and finding a new donor.
After that, we took a walk around pinehurst and there was lots of cool plantings in these "swales" the city put in. Steve was feeling this weird nerve-pain feeling and so when we got back to the pharmacy we asked for the drug information and there are a lot of unpleasant side affects to the growth factors he will be getting. I'm hoping they work. The other hope is this is just a strange marrow-hiccup and his body starts working (no explanation is fine with me).
We're not feeling that great coming on the year aniversary of his diagnosis. But I have to remember and remind steve that we will just do our best to cope and deal with the day to day.
On the up side, they also put him back on his steroids, and he was feeling pretty energetic this morning. Having energy is a good to help us fight this situation.
I really need to read up on graft failure and maybe gvhd. Sometimes information isn't so nice to have though.

2 comments:

rachael said...

We're thinking of you two. I really hope the growth factors get his cells going. I can find some good info and publications if you like, but I know what you mean about having too much information sometimes. I will spend this morning concentrating on making Steve's new cells replicate and function!

Unknown said...

Sorry to hear the news. I hope this is just a temporary setback on your road to recovery. You had been doing great until just recently and I'm confident that you'll be able to spring back from this. We're all pulling for you, Steve.