I’ve missed writing here recently. The first week or so I was dealing with some potentially severe complications that were making me feel very sick. The last week has been mostly a matter of suffering from sheer exhaustion every time I found myself with a minute to write.

So I find myself, just before three in the morning, with a little time and not quite ready to go ack to sleep after the morning blood draws and other tests.

“Why you gotta go and make things so complicated?”

I have already written a little about this, and I won’t belabor it too much here. My body retained more fluids than it should have, causing my abdomen to swell and distend. It took some time and several tests to determine what had caused this. Some of those causes could have been quite dangerous, such as damage to my liver. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad, but it did make me feel rotten for a couple of weeks and require significant treatments. I’m still, even now, draining out the fluids. It still sometimes makes me feel awful, but it is so much better now.

“Who’s the Boss?”

Last Saturday, they were able to confirm that I had achieved engraftment. That means that my sister’s stem cells have officially taken over and shown my body who’s boss. They’re creating new marrow and growing it, and they’re doing one hell of a job.

The various numbers they’re watching—hemoglobin, white blood cells, neutrophils, platelets—are all ticking upward, some incredibly fast, and others incredibly slow.

This is, of course, the best possible news over the last couple of weeks.

“It’s been a long road…”

Due to the complications and the treatments I’m still on to resolve them, I am stuck here in the hospital for an extra week or so. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The road home is up ahead, and while I’m sure there will be more trials and bumps in the road along the way, I’m on the other side of the worst of it all.

I’ll take it!