Day +1

My Today Blood Count:
Red Blood Count (RBC) 84 (Normal 130-180)
Platelet 57 (Normal 150-50)
White Blood Count (WBC) 2.2 (Normal 4 - 11)

I am well today, managed to sleep a few hours in the afternoon. But of course not continuous sleep, I have to wake up many times to pass urine. "Why so much urine to pass?." In fact they infuse (transfers through the lumen that I mentioned earlier) 6 litres of solution into my body each day. The solution contains water plus 0.9% Sodium Chloride and 5% Glucose. The hospital sometime also add potassium and magnesium, but definately not GOLD into the solution due to the deficiency of these mineral in my blood. In addition to what I drink, my total water intake is about 9 to 10 litre per day. I gains 2 kg this morning due to fluid retention, the nurse injected a drug called Lasix to make me pass urine almost every 15 minutes initially :-(

The next 21 days or more will be very crucial. It is the waiting period for the new stem cells to engraft. During this period my white blood count will drops until zero rendering myself without immunity at all. Another component of blood are red blood cells which are used to carry oxygen to the organs and tissues of the body. The third component is called platelet. It helps blood to clot. All of these blood components will drop as well. However, the red blood cell and platelet are easier to handle. They can be transfused if the level drops to an unacceptable level. There is no way to transfuse white blood cell. We can only wait for the body to grows. A drug called growth factor might be able to speed up the white cells formation. It will be given daily to me from day +5, 10 July onwards until my white cell count increase to 2.

Apart of Cyclosporin to reduce the GVHD, today they added a drug called Methotrexate (MTX). This drug is a chemo drug but they give me in small dosage. The purpose is also to reduce GVHD in this case. However, this drug will cause severe mouth ulcer. Luckily, it does not have to be given daily. We pray that severe mouth ulcer will not occurs.

I also notice my face turned darker each day. It should be due to chemo effect. Please don't blame me to be too serious next time you meet me. The face turned dark by itself, not by me:-)