Questions for the doctor

I had thought of more questions to ask the doctor when he came on the daily rounds today. I found out that our pets are no problem (animals are fine he said, it's people that's the problem -- as far as germs anyway).

When Sawyer goes out of the house to school, or a restaurant or store, or something like that he won't need to wear a mask. He'd have to be careful about going into someplace like a movie theater though and I don't think they'd let him on an airplane for awhile.

He still has a full head of hair. It will probably be at least another week or more before he starts to lose it.

Once he's released, we'll need to keep an eye on his temperature. If it goes over 100.5 we'll need to call and most likely will be taking him directly back up here to the hospital to be admitted until they can identify the source of the infection.

He will have his bone marrow tested again on Day 28 of his treatment. Results come back in 1-2 days and our hope will be that there's zero leukemia cells in it. So that's our initial target. But we were told that pretty much everyone relapses at some level and the vast number of relapses occur either during the treatment phase or within 2 years after. So our long-term goal is five years out -- they won't pronounce that a patient is cured until at least that long.

On other news, Mark was able to move the wood out of our basement yesterday with what sounded like a very energetic crew. Someone showed up with a wood splitter and a gator tractor which allowed them to tackle some logs that he hadn't had a chance to cut yet. Needless to say we are thrilled and thankful to our friends and family for their continued willingness to step in and help. I keep feeling sorry for the folks who live in large cities and/or far from their families and don't have the large network that we are blessed with.

Sawyer has thankfully felt mostly good since his chemo treatment on Saturday. His stomach has been a bit off but he's learning when to speak up and which medicines are more helpful. He's also found it's a bit better if he doesn't lie completely flat so he props the head of the bed up a little at night to sleep. The doctor and nurses have reiterated that's he's handling the treatments much better than many, and attribute much of that to his overall good health otherwise.Keep your fingers crossed for an early discharge!