Two steps forward, one step back

At my follow-up appt last week, my transplant doc expressed concern with the Delta variant surging as well as RSV and other stuff going around. Because I’m still unvaccinated and my blood counts have gone down more, she recommended that I avoid gatherings (especially indoors) until things improve. This has been hard to swallow as I was just enjoying getting back to things recently such as going to my church and seeing friends and family these past few months. Grace pointed out that when setbacks like these occur which affect us all, it seems to be tenfold for our family. 

With that said, my doc advised me to go ahead and get the Covid vaccine especially as kids prepare to return back to school soon. So I’m scheduled for my first dose next week. Thankfully my immune panel result from last week came back higher, so we’re hopeful that the vaccine will work in my body despite still being on steroids. Please pray that the vaccine would be effective and that adverse side-effects would be held at bay. My fellow fighter friend Trent got his antibodies tested recently and they unfortunately found none. And another friend Edward who is also post-transplant had some pretty bad GVHD after getting the vaccine. There just isn’t a lot of research data out there regarding the Covid vaccine with transplant patients. Nevertheless, my doc feels it’d be the safest and wisest decision to get vaccinated at this time.

Also, as my blood counts went down more cause of my Philly Chromosome med, I’ll be decreasing my dosage on that. A continual balancing act. But on the bright side, I did gain 2 pounds this past month which was encouraging as I had been losing weight over the past several months. 

Our family is looking forward to our annual camping getaway this week which we missed last summer. There’s no reception where we’re going so will be nice to unplug as we enjoy the great outdoors together.

Badminton with cousins (nice shot Tabby!) & lunch with my mom