What I've got

Well, we made the trip back home last night. I rode with Brother Billy and Sister Jay last night. I got discharged from Stanford in the late afternoon and we went to Thomas' house to wait for rush hour to finish.
It is great to be back home. Brother Bill and Jay are still here and the Chickenhawk is at the gym and off doing some grocery shopping. We watched the Olympics for most of the day. I am feeling a lot better than I was a couple of days ago. With the help of meds, my appetite is back and I am eating as much as I can and regaining weight.
My biggest challenge is my kidney condition. It got diagnosed about two weeks ago as I was entering the hospital. It is called Fanconi syndrome. The problem is that I am spilling all sorts of critical electrolytes in my urine. I drink about 8 literes a day and pee as much if not more. I am always thirsty, I have to pee about every 20 minutes. This has been going on for some time, and slowly getting worse. Until it was diagnosed, I was feeling worse and worse with more and more nausea, etc. We thought that I was just having more adverse reaction to the chemo than most folks but it was more than that, I was dangerously low on certain electrolytes.
When I was in the hospital the doctors first managed the imbalance with IV fluids. That was great for getting me back to health. Now however, I have to manage myself with pills. I haven't actually counted all of them, but I take one particular electrolyte, eight pills, four times a day.

The prognosis for the Fanconi syndrome is mixed. Some of the docs are telling me that I may have this condition for the rest of my life while others are telling me that the BMT msy cause the problem to slowly go away.

In addition to that, I have a blood clot in my left leg/ hip. My leg is swollen about 1/3 of regular size. The doctors have put me back on anti coagulation drugs and we are hoping that will cure the problem. There was some talk of removing the clot through an interventional procedure but we decided not to do that since the dye that they need to use is bad for my kidneys. At this point I need to protect my kidneys as much as possible.

So, I am home. I am happy to be here. The girls are coming home tomorrow after a month in OR (thanks again Shalyn, Lance Nancy and Charlie). The chickenhawk and I are really looking forward to seeing them. We miss them terribly. It feels great to be out of the hospital. I was in for 11 days and I hope that is the most time I ever spend in one again. It is great to be alive!!
Thanks for reading.