It's Sunday afternoon and I had a little time (since the Chiefs obviously aren't playing) so thought I'd send an update. Plus, last night I realized that I have failed to provide much detail as to what exactly/medically happened over the past 3 weeks and for those interested, I'll try to give a brief, yet honest overview. As far as how I feel, it's still 1 day at a time, but what's new? I'm not regressing which is good. Last week I made enough progress that I didn't have to travel back to Omaha on Friday. Next appt is Tuesday and I pray that if things still appear stable, they might let me go to every other week visits! I've returned to work which is so good for my mental health. There's really nothing to benefit by sitting at home so I need to be productive (or at least feel that I am). I was able to see friends this weekend, get to church... I'm still very weak, definitely the worst it's ever been. I'm impatient to regain the strength, but decided this morning that if God can use 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed thousands, He can use an atrophied body to accomplish His ends. I just need to be open to His plan and realize that it's His plan, not mine.
Now for the background on what happened for those who might be confused. GVHD is when the transplanted stem cells react against the existing system - recognizing it as foreign and attacking it. The most serious reactions typically happen within the first 100 days and are referred to as "acute GVHD". The rejection can happen very fast thus why we had to stay in Omaha for 100 days last summer. After the 100 day mark GVHD usually takes on what they call a chronic form. It can affect your skin or your eyes or various other organs but is typically more of a nuisance with small setbacks. Right before Christmas, I started to have some intestinal symptoms which is when they decided to start the testing to see what was going on. What they found was acute, stage IV GVHD of my intestinal tract. It hit VERY fast - basically stripping away the entire lining of my gut within a week. The problem with not having a lining to your intestine is that you can't absorb any nutrients. No intestine, no nutrients, no healing... I'm sure you can see the problem. The best the doctors can do is try to "rest" your gut, decrease irritation so that hopefully any tissue trying to regrow won't be washed away, and give you steroids to try and decrease the inflammation/slow the GVHD. But steroids aren't a miracle cure and can slow the actual healing. (not to mention a host of other unpleasant side effects) That's why this has been so precarious and so serious. There's isn't a "cure" - they do the best they can and then watch and wait. Also why they've watched my diet so closely - all the good, high calorie, fattening foods that I'm so hungry for would risk ruining what intestinal regrowth has occurred. I have to baby it along, not giving it anything that might reirritate it. Every couple days I try to reintroduce something, but if it doesn't settle well, I have to step back down. So, I hope that helps for anyone that didn't really understand what happened and will explain why it's taking so long to get back on my feet and why the doctors are so guarded.
