Closer to rolling out the door (Day +22)

Hello everybody. The good news of the day is that it looks like Max has got his appetite back! He put away quite a bit of food today, including: a piece of vegemite toast (no crusts), a bowl of cornflakes, a mini pizza, 3 savoy crackers, a sausage, 4 potato gems, two chicken nuggets, a freddo frog and an easter egg. Not only that he also managed to throw back 3 bottles of orange juice. It's fair to say that he exceeded his Weight Watchers points for the day. If this rate of consumption were to continue we might have to roll him out of the hospital doors.

And just when might Max be walking, or rolling out as the case may be, of those hospital doors? Well in even better news, we were given a tentative date for being discharged! We won't spill the beans on the date until we have well and truly left the building as there are a million things that could happen between now and then. That said, the main doctor who has just returned from a two week trip to Europe (missing all of Max's hijinks), is very impressed with his progress. She warned us that Max has a long way to go before he is considered to be fully recovered from the transplant, as in at least 12 to 18 months away, but for now he is very close to being able to go home, or in our case, to take up temporary accomodation in an apartment across the road. We have decided that in the week or so after being discharged that we would like to be close by to the hospital due to the daily trips Max will be required to make back to the oncology ward for blood tests, tranfusions, to say hello to his many girlfriends (ie the nursing staff), etc.

The Numbers:

White cell count: 2.7 (6.0-17.0) **
Neutrophils:  1.35 (1.5-8.5) **
Haemoglobin: 91 (110-140) *
Platelets: 56 (150-400) *

* transfusions are topping these levels up at the moment, so they are not a true indication of where he is at.

**  These numbers have been falling of late but there's no need to panic just yet. We were told to expect this to happen once they stopped giving Max the G-CFS (white blood cell booster stuff)

His blood pressure is also a little high (mean of 90) but we have been told that this could simply be a side effect of the cyclosporin. They are treating the high blood pressure with drugs.

Thankyous:

• Bec, Dave and Benjamin for groovy glow stars
• Connor (with help from Eph and Mani) for the easter bunny
• Aunty Juda for, once again, another beautiful card.

Cheers,

Tim