It has been a non-stop day of IV meds, oral meds and treatments. At the end of this very long, tiring day and 4 hours of photopheresis, we found out the photopheresis treatment didn't work because the UV light bulb wasn't working. Really. So, after 4 hours of pumping out blood and treating it with uvedex (sp?), the blood was pumped back in. Since there was no UV light, the uvedex didn't bond to the DNA in the T-cells and so didn't do any good. If we have to look for a bright side in this mess, it is that John's wbc count is so low (0.7) that there may not have been many T-cells to treat anyway.
The infectious disease docs were here. The pneumonia is consolidated, not diffuse; it could be caused by bacteria, viruses (including the CMV although that kind of pneumonia usually is diffuse), fungus or even aspiration of some food or fluid. To figure out the culprit, he is consulting with John's transplant doc and the pulmonologists to see if bronchoscopy is a good idea. If everyone gives the ok, that will be one more procedure - still looking for silver linings... at least John would get conscious sedation. Too bad they can't do April's bone marrow biopsy while he is under.
John is still very tired, and weak, not eating much yet and has crummy counts - wbc 0.7, hemoglobin 9.1 and platelets 17,000. He has 2 crowns that have come loose and was planning to see the dentist to remedy that on Monday; that was before he was admitted to the hospital on Friday. Still making jokes with the staff though. Today during an examination, an infectious disease fellow asked him if he knew where he was. John answered yep, I'm in Hawaii, it's 1984, Reagan is president; the poor guy was getting worried but the light did eventually dawn.
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