Day +26// Rest. Hydrate. Temperature. Sanitize. Repeat.

This post is brought to you by everything antiseptic and disinfecting.

Well, that certainly didn’t take long for me to come down with a cold once returning home! Earlier this week I woke up with a sore throat which gradually over a day or 2 turned into a sore throat and runny nose, and then yesterday the coughing started. Dang it!! This happens every single year when we turn the heat on and the house is filled with dry hot air. Usually I don’t really care and I just pop some cold medicine and get on with my life. But now I can’t take any medicines with fever reducers or anything because it is very important to monitor my temperature throughout the day because if it rises to 101.5f or higher, I have to go straight to the ER. This is because it doesn’t take a whole lot for a little virus to quickly turn into Sepsis for those of us who are recent HSCT patients. So far this week my temperature has stayed between 98.7 and the highest was 99.5. My family and I have been super conscious about sanitizing and washing our hands, so while I am living with a germ infested 4-year-old preschooler, I really think that this is either allergies or simply due to my yearly reaction to turning the heat on for the first time. Whatever the cause, I will continue to get as much rest as I can, drink as much water as I can, and sanitize whenever I pass by a bottle of it which we have strategically placed all over the house in every room.

We went out and got a new humidifier and have had that running in the bedroom non stop for the past 2 days. I think that has helped take away the sore throat because today my biggest annoyance is this dry cough and constant tickle in my throat, likely due to post nasal drip (thank you, WebMD).

I have an appointment on November 2 with a blood and bone marrow transplant specialist here in Grand Rapids and I look forward to meeting him and having him to rely on for questions throughout this recovery process.

I am almost to my 1 month benchmark! I think I’ll do monthly check-ins with hair progress updates on my monthly stem cell birthdays. How’s that sound?