Wednesday, August 13, 2008

+743 Day Hospital, Headaches/High Blood Pressure, Skin Looking Great, Trip to Eugene OR, Stanford Research Studies

WBC - 11.0
Platelets - 311K
Hemoglobin - 14.5
Blood pressure 129/84 (high) (got up to 138/94 while we were at the Day Hospital)
Weight 14.9 kilos
Blood Urine Nitrogen (BUN) - 27 (high - but Dr. Argawal reminded me to give him a lot of water. The Prograf (immuno. suppress) is toxic to the liver so they watch this number carefully)



We're in the Day Hospital today for IVIG. David's skin has been looking great even though I have not been applying the steroid creme. He has had headaches though, and as you can see his blood pressure has been up, which I think was causing the headaches. The medications like Prograf and Predisone cause high blood pressure, but I see another coralation between high cholesterol and blood pressure. David's cholesterol has been high ever since transplant. When you have high cholesterol, the fatty tissues get deposited into the arteries, when that happens the arteries cannot do a good job pumping your blood, thus high blood pressure. He was given an extra dose of Isradapine today to help bring it down.

Dr. Argawal decided to do Zenopax (immuno. suppress) every 4 weeks to see how he does. So, we'll be coming every two weeks for IVIG and every two weeks for Zenopax.

Current Meds:

Predisone 2mls/twice/day
Meltaway antacid - once/day
Septra 4mls/twice/day
Prograf 7mls/twice/day
Isradapine (blood press) 2mls/twice/day
Multi-vit w/out iron - once/day
Liquid Calcium w/Magnesium - once/day
Nordic Naturals Omega Oil - once/day
Zenopax - every 4 weeks
IVIG - every 4 weeks



Last week we took a trip to Eugene, OR. We are trying to sell our home there. It's vacant right now. I bought a few Lego kits for him and he loved them! He even built his own ATV motorcycle by following the directions. It was amazing to me to see a 4 yr old concentrate so intently on the instructions, find the pieces and build something useful to play with.

Stanford has a new group of people who are working on developing a study on the Long Term Health Effects on Recipients of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation. David will partake in the study so that we can further research and hopefully improve the outcomes of post BMT patients. There is another study they are asking us to join that is sponsored by The National Marrow Donor Program. This study only requires 2mls of blood which will be tested against different pathogens and banked for other purposes.

As for the rest of us, we are doing very well. Michael just released his product Knol. The girls went to my church pre-teen camp and had a blast! I've been very busy getting ready for the upcoming school year and enjoying marriage and motherhood immensely!

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