Hospital Life

Jacob is chowing down on a bag of pretzels as I write this. He is doing great for a post-BMT patient. His immune system is very weak, practically non existent, so he has to stay in isolation throughout recovery, which is normal. His blood count numbers continue to drop, which is also normal. They will continue to drop for the next couple of weeks, and then should slowly start to come up. When they get to a certain level, Jacob is safe to go home. His immune system won't be fully recovered for 6 months to a year, so we will have to continue to be very careful about germs. His nurse on Sunday said you'd never know he just had a bone marrow transplant as he was energetic and playful throughout the day. He still has his hair for now and he hasn't developed any mouth sores. He also hasn't been nauseous since transplant day and the following day, which has been good because he can eat, which most bmt patients won't do. Jacob is receiving 12 hours of nutrition through his iv to fill in any gaps in his diet.

The hardest part right now is just waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Being in a hospital room for 14 hours/day and wearing all the isolation gear gets tedious, but I'm glad Jacob doesn't seem to mind being here. We watch a lot of cartoons because I run out of play ideas. I am finishing my fourth day in a row at the hospital and will be trading off with Josh tonight. I am looking forward to spending time with Ethan, who has been so amazing through all of this chaos in his life. It will be so wonderful to have our family back together again at the end of all of this. I miss that the most.

We have been greatly blessed in so many ways throughout this process. Thanks to everyone who is donating blood and platelets for Jacob, and for those of you coordinating efforts. You are an amazing blessing to him and our family and we are so grateful. It has been a humbling experience for us to be in this type of situation and we have been so touched by your charity. We can't thank you enough.