Back to the Doctor

Hi, folks!

Happy spring to you all, and thanks for checking in here. Kristina really appreciates it and loves hearing from folks (hint, hint).

So her recent troubles with a loss of appetite -- and therefore an overall loss of weight and energy -- have continued to the point that she's scheduled to see a doctor on Monday the 24th. They're going to do an endoscopic procedure, which basically means sticking a camera down her throat to see what's up. She has to get knocked out for this to happen.

What she's hoping they won't find is Graft Versus Host Disease, which is a fairly common reaction to a transplant. What GVH amounts to is the immune system of the transplanted cells attacking her body, thinking it's an invader. A backwards distortion of a healthy system, and one than can cause a lot of problems.

If her current troubles are GVH, then it's back onto the steroids, which she would not be happy about. Steroids (specifically prednizone) make her anxious, mess with her vision, make her urinate a lot more than usual, and make her gain weight. Not fun.

So what we're hoping is that she's just dealing with some stress (the insurance problem is still around) rather than something chronic that will require medication. So it's positive-vibe time again!

Meanwhile, she's only seeing her doctor once a week, in addition to a support group for post-transplant patients, so in that sense she is progressing. She just needs to get this ... whatever it is ... straightened out so she can get back to eating and move towards a more normal life.

Thanks again for checking in, and for gosh sakes, give her a call!

Little Appetite, Low energy

Considering what Kristina was dealing with a while back, not having an appetite and therefore being kind of tired all the time doesn't seem that bad. In that sense, the news is good.

But not eating and not having energy is kind of a problem -- especially when last week she went through a spell of diarrhea that caused her to lose six pounds in nine days.

In other news, the confusion over the insurance seems to have been settled -- a huge relief -- but the question of how to pay the latest bill remains. Money is an eternal issue in her life, it seems.

Medically, her magnesium levels are back on the rise, and her doctor thinks she might "get her line pulled" within the next couple of weeks. That means removing the thing they put in her chest to accept the IV drip. She'd love to get that removed and not have to do the IV thing anymore!

For a little more information about the stage she's in -- past Day 100 -- check out this page from the National Marrow Donor Program.

And that seems to be it for now. Thanks for checking in. She and I talked about maybe trying to post something every week, even if there isn't much to say. We'll try to do that.