ICU Update

Steve was better last night. Tremors and wild jerking almost gone and he slept deeply, if briefly. He hasn't really slept for over a week. Still some confusion, but could carry on a pretty logical conversation, if you could understand him because of the mouth sores. He is trying to eat very small amounts, but that mouth is painful.

BUN is at 70, down from 96 but of course should be between 7-18. The Prograf level had fallen to 14. They will give him lower doses of the Prograf, trying to keep it around 10 and monitor carefully now that they know he is so sensitive to it. Liver and sugar numbers still high. Still very swollen feet and legs, bruised all over.

They have sitters with him 24 hours a day. Interestingly, the sitters all told us that it had been more than two years since they were called over to the bone marrow transplant hospital. Steve must have been extra wild with his "chemo brain".

And his blood counts have started coming up. Which should help heal his mouth and intestines Hopefully it's his donor's cells. We will know that in about 10 days.

Phone calls would still be difficult as Steve is almost impossible to understand right now. That should improve in a couple of days with the white cells.

I've got to say, this guy has real guts. And courage. He is taking all this misery without a complaint. He can still laugh. He talks about getting back to work. He actively joined a conversation I had with a sitter about car insurance. He expressed interest and questioned me thoroughly about our aunt who is sick. And the sitters say he keeps making order in his room. The room is miniscule and he doesn't have much in it, but he wants it just so. Seems to give him a sense of controlling something.