Chemo Round 3 Completed

Ray has finished his third round of chemo now in preparation for the transplant. His stomach is very sore & a bright red from those chemo injections but he's handling it well. Usually within a week or two, those issues resolve themselves.

Today he went for his weekly blood lab work & his white blood count (which indicates his ability to fight off infections) revealed that it's now at it's lowest level thus far. He is dangerously neutropenic (an abnormally low level of neutrophils (white blood cells produced in the bone marrow).  We have learned so very many medical terms over the past nine months! And to think that this time last year we had never even heard of MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndrome). And now we've heard several stories of people that have known others with this disease. The good news is that there have been a lot of medical advances in that area over the past few years.

We have five weeks now to get ourselves ready for the transplant. I am working on doing a few things around our home here such as some outdoor cleaning & yard work because once the transplant occurs I certainly won't have any spare time to do it then. Ray so wants to help me but he has been told by the doctors that he should avoid any contact with soil, grass clippings, dust, etc. And besides that, his energy level is diminishing. He tires fairly quickly whenever he exerts himself in any way. But it's ok, I'm able to do the things we need done.

After Dad & Randy go back to Indiana, I will need to throughly clean the inside of our place but I figure I can knock that out fairly quickly. Because Ray will be even more susceptible to infection I'll need to ensure the house stays closed up & good air filters installed. I plan to scrub the place from top to bottom. There is a whole list of things that are recommended be done in preparing a place for someone who has gone through a transplant. But hey, I can handle that! It will give me something to do, right? :-) 

Anyhow, I'm sure I'll know a lot more about what we'll soon be facing and how to prepare for it when we go through the upcoming educational classes in two weeks. Ready or not...