Day +61: oral prednisone

Two months to the day since the transplant date. Seems like a lot longer. Today I was walking down the street when I noticed a sign in a shop window that said "Closed Monday, July 4". I thought that seemed kind of odd for this time of year, and then it hit me: "Oh my God, Monday is the 4th of July!" Caught me totally by surprise. Of course, it probably would help if I lived in a place where the weather provided any sort of clue that it was summer, but still...

Another day of progress for Mina Brigitta. She ate quite a bit more than yesterday, and they switched her prednisone (steroid) from IV to oral. She's now down to 20 mg per day from over 50, and her face is almost starting to look normal again. She still kind of has that Barry Bonds look, but she's down to two chins from about four, and even the second one is starting to go away. She also received what may be her last dose of infliximab; they may give her another dose next Wednesday, but they haven't decided for sure. She's doing so well that they'll probably be tempted to skip it if there are no further signs of GVHD, but things are still a bit iffy with her stomach so we'll see how it goes. The one bummer about today is that she threw up about half an hour after taking her neoral (cyclosporine) this morning. I remember this happening last time they were trying to send us home. I think the problem is a really rough medicine on an empty stomach, so we're going to try getting much food in her as possible before her 8 AM dose, and also giving her an anti-nausea med maybe at 7:00.

Otherwise Mina Brigitta had a pretty nice day. Keri slipped away againg while she was napping, and after a trip to Target didn't make it back to the room, so Mina got several hours with Grandma. She did fine, though she was happy to see me and she did say "Mom-momma go?" when she was snuggling in to go down. She says "Dadda go?" in the morning too when Keri comes. She went for another walk in the hallway and drew some very nice pictures, one of a bear and one of Bubba crying for Momma. She's also started putting bandaids and tape and diapers on her babies again, which she hadn't been doing for a while.