Day 24

Vlad continues to get stronger and feel OK. He's still pretty weak, but he's able to work on his contract gig and fix a sandwich and change the battery in the smoke alarm, etc. Pretty soon, he'll be back in full honey-do mode. :)

He saw Dr. Alousi this morning at his MDA appointment. Alousi is happy with Vlad's better-than-usual progress. He got his saline today, had his Tacrolimus adjusted (to about half of what he was taking) and he's added an antibiotic that targets pneumonia, which is a common side effect. Plus with this crazy weather (3 days of lows below freezing: extremely rare for Houston -- goodbye hibiscus!) they probably are being cautious.

He's still taking the magnesium chloride, which, strangely, is the same compound being sprayed on Houston roads to keep them from icing.

Today's numbers: WBC 4.1; RBC 3.71; hemoglobin 11.3; platelets 175; and absolute neutrophils 2.39. Awesome.

He also agreed today to be in yet another study; this one on bone density. There's a known osteoporosis problem with some stem cell transplant patients. He's going to be taking Boniva in the study. That's the "one little pill" that Sally Field advertises.