A bit of a turnaround of events today as when I woke up this morning I was told not to eat or drink anything – except water for my meds – because a bronchoscopy was scheduled for me. As I wrote yesterday there is a lot of discussion amongst my consultants. My transplant attending on rounds this morning said he sat down with the radiologist and the CT scan from this past Friday definitely was consistent with an aspiration pnemonia.

So off to the surgical suite I went and the bronchoscopy resulted in a fair amount of mucous material obtained. Now we wait for the analysis and cultures which could take many days. I was told I could be hospitalized for another week depending on how this goes. My head is a bit frustrated by this although I am seeming to improve.

My constant oxygen needs were lowered to 2L of flow. That is a nice normal level for those who need some oxygen support and from this my O2 Sat is in the low 90s.

I have not been reporting on my scorecard although as an inpatient I am having labs drawn every day. On that note, my platelets are good, as is my WBC and ANC counts. My Hb and HCT are down a bit to 10 and 30 respectively. When I arrived here my HCT was 36 so I am down some red cells. Hard to say exactly why. It could be due to all the blood that is taken for testing, or the fact that I am sick or various stages of hydration that I am in.

The best part of my day today was that Sharon brought me a tuna sandwich. Delicious and just the way I like it. We are formulating some plans to bring in food for me as the dining options here are not very appealing to my taste buds, which by the way have changed so that many foods I eat now taste overly salty. That anomaly goes along with my hearing which is still very problematic and my sense of smell which left me some years ago after all the chemo I had leading up to my CAR T therapy in 2019.

We are taking this day by day as the adventure continues.

Larry and Sharon