09/29/2016 update

It is Wednesday, 9/28 and this is my first unanticipated visit to the UW Medical Center.  I had contacted my team yesterday morning to give them a list of symptoms that I have been having.  Tired, no appetite, cough, diarrhea.  I went in in the morning to explain the symptoms and have some tests done.  We expected to hear back re: labs on Wednesday but Dr. Masri called at dinner time to tell me that I had CMV, a virus that most have had but not me.  My donor had the antibodies for it.  It seems to be fairly common post transplant due to the suppressed immune system.  It requires IV administration of a particular drug, gancyclovir.  No word yet, but looks like may 3-4 days inpatient then the same med in pill form at home. 

I've had a EKG and an echo today.  Lots of docs, fellows and students today.  Tomorrow will bring a colonoscopy with biopsy to confirm CMV and eliminate cdiff.  So the fasting started at 1pm and the prep will begin at five pm and then again in the early morning.  No time scheduled for the procedure.  It'll be whenever they have time.  They make appointments for outpatients and fit in the inpatients as there is time. 

We will know more, hopefully, tomorrow and we will post another blog.

Thursday 9/29 and still in the hospital.  Had a colonoscopy this morning that sounds ok, though we will get biopsy results in a day or two.  The home medications will be via IV and will go for several weeks.  Normal procedure would be to install a picc line in an arm, but because of the blood clots post transplant, a port will be installed in the chest.  We still need to see the eye doctor as vision is a bit fuzzy and CMV can cause unrecoverable vision loss.  Hopefully we caught it in time.  Some lab results are back and negative for C-diff and Norovirus, which is real good.  Now we don't need gowns and gloves, just a mask for John when he is out of the room.  We had hoped that the port would be installed today so that we could go home Friday before the UW/Stanford game causes traffic gridlock.  The word from staff is that if we don't get out of the parking garage before two pm , we will be stuck until at least six pm.  Everyone is trying to facilitate this for us, but the UWMC is a large machine and as such moves slowly.