Monday, October 24, 2011

part two


Fail.

That pretty much sums up my inability to update this blog for what, over a month? Sigh.

It's pretty embarrassing, seeing as I am now finishing the second transplant, and hoping to leave tomorrow (please please please).

The road to this second transplant was not a smooth one. A few weeks after the first transplant, I went for a CT scan and received the dismaying news that the lesions in my liver had grown in size from the last scan.

However, there had been some question about these liver lesions before, which I'm not sure I'd ever gotten the chance to mention. Only one biopsy in two surgeries had come up positive, and on the PET scans none of the CT lesions showed as positive. So there was actually some question as to whether there was any disease in the liver, despite all these lesions on CT.

As a result, my doctors decided they needed to biopsy my liver for disease. They performed a needle biopsy of one of the lesions, taking five samples.

The result? No sign of tumor, just inflammation and fibrosis. But no sign of tumor, dead or alive.

With these results, we decided to move forward with the second transplant. Which, while apparently better than my doctor expected, has definitely been much more difficult than the first. Both the immediate effects and side effects from the chemo made me feel awful, and it has been so much more difficult to tolerate isolation and being in the hospital, period.

Though it took roughly the same amount of time for the stem cells to take root and my counts to lift, and though I'll be staying here only a day or two longer than the last stay, I feel much less recovered than when I left the hospital after the first treatment. I still feel quite weak. Don't exactly see myself baking cookies after a few days at home like last time. My throat, which suffered the worst of the mucositis, is still healing, so eating, and especially eating enough, is quite the challenge.

I think I'm going to end here, with just this simple update. Obviously, there's a lot more to talk about and a lot that's happened that I should probably work through by writing it out. But it's more important for now that I just let people know what's going on, I think, not to mention that it's getting late and I am rather exhausted. I'll make it a goal to write that post once I'm home.

2 comments:

  1. Katie we've never talked much but I really am so in awe of how amazingly strong you are. Nothing about this situation seems easy but you are doing amazing and I wish and pray for nothing but the best. You are in my thoughts! Keep wearing that beautiful smile of yours.

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  2. Katie! I truly admire your strength. Thanks for sharing so much with us!

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