Days +41 to +44: Sleepless in New York

We never expected to get much sleep in the hospital, but some nights are decent and some nights there is basically no point in sleeping. Lately, the nights have been our enemy and there is no rest for the weary. Ezra has been suffering from a very painful diaper rash and it keeps him awake at night. We keep trying to wean him from his pain meds, but then it flairs up and they put him back on a steady flow of pain meds. They also downsized his IV pump because the number of meds is decreasing, which is a great thing, but the new type of pump beeps constantly during the night. Irritated tush, beeping pumps, regular vitals and frequent transfusions equals long, long nights.

Ezra's counts continue to go up. Some days the numbers are down, but the trend is generally up. And today his neutrophils jumped into the normal range! We know they may come back down, but we'll take it.

The answer to the big question still has not arrived - are these neutrophils donor or Ezra's old cells? The results of the chimerism testing are due in this week. We are very anxiously awaiting the news. Prayers and positive thoughts that these cells are donor please!

In other exciting news, Ezra finally saw smoke coming out of the smoke stacks that he sees from his windows! It only took 8 weeks. Guess the factory workers are back from their vacation in Queens. And Dr. Ezra is back on service. He needed to wear his scrubs for his stroll around the floor.