Sunday, November 13, 2011 – It was great to sleep in a real bed last night. The pain from the mucositis in my mouth was waking me up every few hours. I get this slimy white coating of mucous on my tongue and the inside of my mouth. It is a burning sensation. Supposedly it will go away when my body starts making white blood cells after my stem cells engraft. The stem cells should get their act together this week or this weekend and set up camp in my bone marrow. It can’t come soon enough.
In the meantime, I have figured out that an electric toothbrush is my best friend. If I let the brush run over the surface of my tongue, and also on the roof of my mouth, it loosens all the mucous to where I can drool or spit it out of my mouth, which cleans my tongue and my mouth and reduces the burning sensation. Yes, it’s somewhat gross, but I consider the discovery a godsend. I’m also using a salt and soda mouthwash to help clean the mucous out of my mouth.
This morning we went back to the hospital to get more bloodwork done. My platelets went from 22k yesterday to 7k today. 20k is the transfusion level, so I got a platelet transfusion today. It only took 30 minutes, which was nice. I also got IV antibiotics, which I will get every day until I start making white blood cells to prevent more fever and infection from returning.
heading home from the hospital
We made it to day 6! Now we are looking forward to Day 10 –Thursday– when I will be a lot closer (and maybe already at) engraftment. Here’s to a WONDERFUL week!
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