Day +34, BMT :: The Homecoming That Wasn't

It's true; Jade is still at the hospital.  When Saturday rolled around, Jade was prepared to do her final set of vital signs before discharge and... she spiked a fever. So, the picture of home from her daily calendar was discretely erased, the bags came off the cart and we hunkered down for an extended stay. The two days that we had hoped for when we brought her into the Emergency Room last Monday after we had just unpacked at home has now ballooned into two weeks.

The fever resolved itself within two hours, but the alarm had already been sounded. Blood cultures and antibiotics were on deck. And the team had already started searching for answers - maybe Jade's transition to the oral steroids, which are not as effective as IV steroids, was indicative of too low of a dose.  Perhaps the rash that wasn't responding to the steroids as quickly as expected -- and persistent loose stools -- were a tell-tale sign of graft versus host disease (GVHD) lurking somewhere in her gastrointestinal (GI) tract.

So, in addition to Jade's bone marrow aspirate and biopsy that were performed on Monday, about a dozen other studies, cultures, tests and scans have been completed or scheduled. Thankfully, the preliminary results from the bone marrow biopsy look good and several infections have been ruled out, but it hasn't eased the team's concern about the possibility of what still appears from the outside to be a mild case of GVHD spinning out of control into a serious case that would be difficult to treat.

Jade is tentatively scheduled for upper and lower endoscopies, procedures that will allow the doctors to actually see the inside lining of her digestive tract and take some samples from within, on Friday, August 8 to help determine if the GVHD is affecting her gut. No definitive timeframe on her discharge either; I wouldn't believe it til we were actually home anyway! For now, we are just focused on keeping Jade happy and engaged... and fulfilling her steroid-inspired requests for hot dogs at breakfast and Cherry Garcia at midnight.

Thank you for your encouragement and for your continued prayers for Jade and for a cure.