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| The decline is when the poison hit home |
"Fine. . . . why?"
"Really, you're feeling okay still?"
"Yes, shouldn't I?"
"Well, that's good. You no longer need to have daily blood tests. Twice weekly is fine."
"Ohhhhh Yay!"
I took a little poetic license there just to make it easier on the reader. Then today we met with nutritionist Kari. She told us that Heidi is such a good eater she no longer needs to see us either.
Let me explain. When I say, a good eater, I don't mean that the nurses do a Bill Cosby "hey-hey-hey" when she walks down the hall. By a good eater, it only means she can eat enough balanced food without frowing up. We only discussed restaurants with her anyway. Restaurants and recipes and other food stuff. It was all about eating. I think the meetings with Kari would have gone much better if she had brought snacks. I'm hungry; what's for dessert?
We're certainly not out of the woods yet. This is only Day 19. As her blood counts return, the risk of Graft versus Host (GvH) rises. Heidi had no immune system the past two weeks, so the graft couldn't muster much of a fight against the existing host. It was kinda like a kindergartner taking on an adult. (Except don't think of Heidi as the adult; think of a real adult who can actually defend herself.) Now her immune system is approaching junior high. It has new-found hormones and a sense of swagger. It spends afternoons hanging out behind the school smoking cigarettes. When it comes across a corpuscle it doesn't like, it might want to pick a fight just to prove its manliness. That's GvH. Gotta get through this awkward stage.
This risk continues until her immune system becomes mature enough that it starts getting tattoos and robbing gas stations. Or other signs of adulthood. I'm trying to come up with a better analogy and coming up empty.
Maybe I should take more photos so I don't have to fill this blog with fake doctor blither.
Okay, here's a dude singing about donating bone marrow. Cool!
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