Lani Brumley

The first few days of this week were long and the waiting game was wearing on me. 

Finally on Tuesday, I got the news I was waiting for! My numbers started to increase which is a direct sign of a successful transplant and engraftment! The first blood counts to increase are the white blood cells and neutrophils. My neutrophils went from too few to evaluate to 0.36. 

To be discharged my care team want the neutrophil count to be 0.5 for 2 days in a row.

I woke up on Wednesday morning to the shocking surprise that my count went from 0.36 to 1.21 in a day!! It’s pretty uncommon for that to happen, so the nurses call me an over-achiever. My numbers continued to double and on Thursday my neutrophils went from 1.21 to 2.68. I put up a bit of a fight to get discharged Thursday, because I was confident that I was stable and able to manage the rest of my recovery as an outpatient at Fred hutch. 

My team finally agreed and I was discharged Thursday evening! I was so excited to sleep in a normal bed and not have to be hooked up to an IV pole 24/7! 

The day of discharge I also received a special certificate for completing a marathon while I was in the hospital. UW has this fun system where if you walk a mile (which is 10.5 laps around the halls) you collect little paper shoes to put on your door. I of course took the challenge and told myself I’d walk 26 miles to get that marathon and I did it! 

This whole experience has given me a whole new appreciation for life. I was most excited to be outside, eat real food (hospital food for 3+ weeks was rough) and have privacy to do as I please! 

I am beyond proud of myself for my resilience and ability to conquer some of the hardest days of my life! I couldn’t have done it without my village of people rooting for me, praying for me, and sending positive/healing energy my way. The hardest part right now is managing some of the side effects from chemo and the new anti rejection meds I’m on.

My Fred Hutch team is phenomenal and working with me to help make me more comfortable during this phase. This has been quite the adventure and I’m grateful I’m doing so well and my body is healing.