This is really a miracle if you had seen Troy twelve days ago. I will let Cathy tell it in her own words:continues his amazing recovery! Kidneys are the only organs that are not back to normal. He will do dialysis three days a week. The filtration system is not working perfectly although he is producing enough urine. Drs are hopeful that their function will improve within 3 to 4 weeks and dialysis will no longer be necessary. He begins his next treatment at 5:30 am tomorrow and then will have his current dialysis catheter removed and another more permanent one installed. Another big day.
Troy is working with both occupational and physical therapists and making great progress. He sat in a chair most of the morning and walked some with a walker. His goal is to walk to the bathroom for a shower tomorrow and to walk a half mile on Wednesday. The same fight and determination that got him out of ICU is being applied to the recovery process. One of his nurses refers to Troy as her "overachiever". Megan, his physical therapist had not seen him since Friday in ICU. Her eyeballs about fell out when she entered the room today to see him sitting in a chair and looking so much better. Dr Abbott says that they are "running our of reasons to keep him here" and he probably can go home by the end of this week.
The feeding tube and one of the pic lines were removed yesterday. He has been off of all oxygen this evening. Right now he has no excess appendages except for one IV line giving him his fungus medicine. What a difference a week makes!
Dr Abbott said today that we should look into going to MD Anderson in a few weeks to explore Troy's options. He feels that the regular transplant procedure might be too risk
y now. There is however a fairly new procedure called a "mini" or "low dose" transplant. This one has provided very good results with patients that are not good candidates for the regular kind. The difference is the amount of chemo used before the donor cells are introduced. The idea is for the donor good cells to fight off the leukemia instead of using chemo to kill them. Dr Abbott thinks that even if Troy's kidneys do not fully recover he might do well with this type of transplant.
I hope that all is well in the world outside of St. Luke's Hospital. Aaron returned to CA on Sunday night. Nicole and Lisa brought me home cooked supper tonight. The kids have been so supportive and helpful,
anticipating needs and attending to details. We are so very proud of them!
Thanks for being there!
Love, Cathy
