Hi @katgob, I’ve been thinking about you. The first couple weeks are the roughest! You’re in the thick of it right now and unfortunately, nausea might be your companion for a bit yet. At day 14 you are in the zone for your new stem cells to start engrafting. So you should start seeing an increase in your blood cell production pretty soon. When that happens, your energy will begin to return slowly and you’ll be feel incrementally better daily! Keeping in mind this is a marathon, not a race! 😉. Recovery will take a few months before you start feeling ‘normal’…

Eating can be a challenge. Nibble on little snacks of whatever appeals to you. Since you’re in the hospital it’s difficult to get what you want. But generally a transplant unit has a fridge stocked with sandwiches, pudding, protein drinks, cheese sticks, yogurt. While protein intake is important, for a short period until I gained some weight, my dietician was more concerned about getting calories into me, no matter the source. Desperate for something to eat, my husband found Lactaid (lactose free) Ice cream that became my sole source of food some days. He’d make me smoothies with the ice cream as a base. Hang in there! This will get better! Air hug!!

Today I am 28 days after transplant. I had a visit with the dr team, but only saw my dr down the hall getting ready to go in another room. I got the nurse. I must update that last Friday I was in my 4th day out of the hospital, and my nausea still had me. Not till I went to the Dr and heard him ask if I had a saltiness in my throat that I thought later what that meant. He mentioned at the visit that I am "killing my kidneys" and I have AKI. Not good. Am I drinking water? Because I essentially failed my 24-urine test before I went in the hospital, I know he knows I do not always drink a lot of water. So, as i thought about what he said, I realized the last time I had chemo in late 2021, I drank 1/2 my weight in water daily. A nurse had told me that this would flush out the toxins. So, I drank at least 1.5 liters of water for 4 days, only one zofran in the morning and my kidney function is back up to the minimum range.
I was a bit on the edgy side today. Not fully sure why. I feel ok now.
Todays results from the nurse are my white cells are climbing, as are my platelets. Looks like my marrow is doing what it is supposed to. All other numbers are good too. All the drugs for rejection look to be working. I did not know that they did not release me from the hospital until the graft looked to be working. Every single nurse provides a bit more into that i did not know.
Right now, the toughest thing is to not have my car to just drive myself around. I used to do that with my other cancer. I will end that every day I say outlound to myself that " I am a bone marrow transplant patient".