Update on the Progress

As I mentioned before my mom is pretty much back to her normal self - the frightening thing is she is actually back a little stronger. Less hair, but a whole lot more white cells and platelets. In fact, my aunt said she is concerned my mom may turn into a super hero who never bleeds because she hasn't had this many platelets in years (literally, she's not kidding about the platelet level). She has also not had this many white blood cells in at least a year, which means she is free and clear to partially return to her normal life. Her normal life is way more fun than my normal life, so I'm pretty psyched my trip up here coincided with her release from isolation. It's also probably good for her because I can keep her from being a little too crazy and doing stuff that she's not allowed to do, but likes to think she is :) So far we've had breakfast out, lunch out, and will be going out to dinner tomorrow, she's had a hot stone massage and I got a facial and we got our nails done today...yep, rough life. They cut us back to Mon-Wed-Fri Hopkins trips this week, which is a nice break. And next week we are expecting them to move her to Mon-Thurs Hopkins trips, which is pretty awesome.

As I said the counts are looking good. The ups and down of the whites from a mere 2 weeks ago, are just a blip on the radar screen now...

As far as a point of reference, 4500 is the low normal for whites, so she was in the normal range and then her body may have actually used white blood cells like it was supposed to and fought something off there 2 days ago, after which it rebounded to normal. Amazing when your body does what it's supposed to!

Platelets are looking beautiful as well...low normal for them is 150, so scores in the 200 and 300 range are quite good, and haven't been seen on my mom's charts in years.

So, what are we waiting for now? Well, as I mentioned before she did have a mild case of graft vs. host disease, but that seems to be clearing up. The GVH doctor seemed happy with her progress on Wednesday. Today she seems to be getting another rash (which is more or less what GVH looks like) so we may be getting another break out, but the doctor said that may happen and it's neither a bad, nor a good sign, it's just what they normally see.

Last Monday they took a blood sample to run genetic tests on and see the percentage of blood cells with Brandy's DNA vs. the percentage with my mom's DNA...hopefully we will find out the results of that tomorrow. I mainly think it will be cool to see, not concerned with the results themselves. Then on day 60 (this is day 41), they will take a bone marrow biopsy and check to determine how much of the bone marrow is Brandy's. That is a much more definitive test, and will give them some indication of whether they need to boost Brandy's bone marrow's confidence by giving my mom a white blood cell transfusion of Brandy's white blood cells. Are you amazed yet? I never stop being amazed with this whole process. Seriously, this thing is no less a miracle than her being healed without medicine!

So, tomorrow is back to Hopkins for another dose of the sedative I know they have in the ventilation system (I'm not joking, when you get back from the hospital you feel far more tired than you should after having just sat around all day - I know their little secret!)