Back home again

I got home Thursday night. I don't have to go back out there until the last week in January. We are going to try to get all of my labs and one CT scan done from here before then. There is a question about how accurate the lab here is in testing the drug levels in my blood and my CMV levels so we are going to have both labs do them for a couple of weeks and see if they are the same.
I am feeling much better. I am done with the antibiotics and should be off the antiviral in the a couple of days. I met with the Rehabilitation doc and physical therapist at NIH. It turns out that the muscle weakness that I am having is actually in my hips - especially the left side. I guess the Prednisone can really affect your shoulders and hips. The gave me some exercises to do and some energy conservation tips. One of the recommendations is to lay down for an hour each day to rest (Margaret - is my bed ready? I think it will fit in my office) The transplant team is excited that I'm going back to work on Monday. They think the sooner the better even though I will probably get some kind of crud at work. Flu season doesn't peak until Feb or March, so maybe I will be ok for awhile. It's kind of frustrating that I can't have any immunizations. The live vaccines would be harmful and the other vaccines would be ineffective.
It looks like I will probably start some chemo when I go back in January. I should be off the steroids or close by then. They have used some specific chemos on transplant patients that have had the result of jump starting the immune system to fight the tumor.The chemo itself can also be good. Since I have been on the steroids I am not getting a very good response. The other option is to have some Donor Lymphocyte infusions (these were taken with my brother's original donation). The risk is that it could cause GVHD (the skin and gut stuff that I have finally recovered from). We will make a decision after my next CT scan in early January. I better enjoy the little hair that I have while I can.