ZackSaint.com

I got in about 10:30 am today, no construction or slow downs on the road! That’s a first. This is day 31 of being in the hospital, but who’s counting?

He doesn’t have much of an appetite yet and can not really taste too much. Side effects of the chemo. When we talked to the nurse about it she said she would have them send up some Ensure with every meal for him to drink and that way he would get the vitamins and fats that he needs. He has lost weight but it does not show that much. Then some of that weight was muscle and that shows. He has a lot of working out ahead of him to get that back and he is ready to get into the gym!

He is still tired and his counts have not come back up yet. They gave him red cells today. He said he feels like his body has just stopped working these last few days. The CAT scan last night showed that he has a sinus infection and so they are treating that.

At 2 pm they did do the bone marrow test and wanted to get the marrow to the lab ASAP so they could get the first results of that on Friday since we have a three day weekend ahead of us. If the marrow is clear of cancer then they will start him on a drug that helps to bring his white cell count up faster and therefore his immune system would come back faster. If they see cancer cells I do not know what they would do. The first week of chemo knocked out 95% of the cancer so we do not expect that the second week would not knock out the last 5%.

Later in the evening when they checked his temperature he was up to 101. A doctor came in and checked him over and talked to us about what could be causing the fever. Something they watch for is a fungus infection in the lungs and somewhere else that I can’t remember. This is something that we would fight off and not even know but since he has no immune system right now he can not fight it. There is another drug for this that they may start him on. I think they will start it tonight.

More calling his friends about the senior project and checking in with his soccer coach. He really hopes the doctor will let him fly down to school in October for a visit.

Kelly was in for a visit this evening and when she left she got stuck in traffic on the expressway. Thanks for the call Kelly! I went around the airport and missed it all. Also, I still say you did not get the puzzle right!

Since Zack was getting some visitors today we gave him the day off from us. Three family members last night was enough to last for another day J. Sarah went in with Kelsey & Catherine and took Charlotte also so we did get a family member in there yet! He is still watching what he eats yet to make sure his stomach has time to recover from the chemo. He spent his day listening to music and playing solitaire and enjoying not having to study!

We also do not have any new information from the doctors at this time. Many of you have been asking what happens if one of the girls is not a match for a transplant and how someone could be tested to be a match. We do not have that information yet and may not for a few weeks until the next two bone marrow tests are done and they schedule our next meeting with Dr. Luger where she will tell us what is going to happen next. We have not been told that the transplant will happen definitely, but that is the way it is looking. Dr. Luger does not like to go to the next step until she has all the testing done that she needs to look at to know what the next phase will look like for Zack. And I think the testing she will want done are the day 14 and day 28 bone marrow tests. Day 28 is September 15th and then it is 4 to 6 days before they get the results back. The one thing we should know before all that is whether or not one of the girls is a match. There is a national bank of bone marrow donors with I guess about 5 million people in it that they can go to for match.

Ginner, Charlotte and I visited Zack after Ginner’s field hockey game. We got there in the late afternoon. Zack had had a quiet day listening to music, working on his computer and resting. He is getting some of his energy back as evidenced by 10 minutes on the exercise bike this morning and a nice walk we took around the U. of Penn (what a beautiful campus!). We brought his clean clothes and some snacks – he is still on a mostly clear liquids diet but can eat a few crackers, etc. here and there.

Zack was feeling better today. He said he could tell the chemo was out of his body. He will still be feeling the effects from it for a while, but he feels the best he has in days. He is still on a liquid diet though, so Jell-O and pudding are getting a bit old. He hopes that he can start eating some solid food on Sunday. He did have a pepperoni stick for dinner and he thoroughly enjoyed it! He just hopes that his stomach can handle it.

We didn’t really do much today. He made a few phone calls that he needed to catch up on. We watched a movie and I think I slept through more of it than he did! He wasn’t as tired as usual because the nurses hadn’t woken him up much the night before. He said they were just being nice and letting him sleep. He was thankful for that. He has great nurses and he is really appreciative of them. We went for a walk outside the hospital before dinner. It was a really nice day and it’s great for him to get outside. He doesn’t last long though, so we went back up after about a half an hour. He ate dinner (more Jell-O) and we played around on the internet. I think movies are getting a bit old.

I was planning on staying the night, but ended up going home. It is nice for him to have some alone time (away from his family). Ginner has a hockey game tomorrow so she is planning on going in that night. That will give him Sunday morning to relax by himself.

Just a normal hospital day today. No big changes and nothing new happened. First day off chemo he is still feeling the same and too soon to see any real differences. We have had trouble getting his DVD player to work on his lap top and the TV in his room has no sound so Nate got a small TV with a DVD player in it to use in his room. That way when we are with him we can watch a movie together. Zack is not much on TV but will watch a movie. Something to help kill time.