Day +5

The last couple of days have been pretty rough. I went from eating off the menu to eating the occasional Popsicle or milkshake. Now, I am on IV nutrition. This is because the mucositisis so painful in my throat. I am now also on a continuous morphine drip with the option of a boost with a button every 6 minutes. The worst pain was the periocarditis around my heart. This is a swelling of the lining around your heart. Likely this was caused by total body radiation. It made it hard to take a deep breath, lay down, or lay on my side. The doctors did not want to use anything on me the first day because they did not want to interfere with the graft. The usual treatment is simply anti-inflammatories like Ibuprofen. After the second day and second x-ray showing it was growing, they decided to use steroids to treat it. I really started feeling better after the first dose of steroids.
Today, they only gave me 1/4 the dose, because they do not want me on steroids for long. My white blood cells are down to zero, so the race is on for the new WBC's to come in.