Daley Ponderings

When Faith signed up for the donation, she was told to expect one or maybe two days of significant pain, and then a week of pain that should be managed with Tylenol and then no running and jumping for six weeks, even if she felt like it.

She had 3-4 days of significant pain, and has certainly gotten better since the first week, but at more than 4 months, continues to have 2 out of 10 pain 24 hours a day.  And more pain if she exerts herself too hard.

Grace's doctors referred Faith to her primary care, who took some x-rays and referred her to physical therapy.  The x-rays didn't show any fractures.  The physical therapist didn't really know what to do, in that she didn't know anything about bone marrow donation, but asked a bunch of good questions and gave her some exercises to do daily.  She is supposed to go back to her primary care if she is still in pain in a month or two.  We did find on Google that 4% of donors are still in pain at 9 months and 1% are in pain at 12 months, but the cancer doctors said that Faith shouldn't be in that class of donors, since she is so young.  We do wonder if the "hard time" the doctors had when collecting the bone marrow would result in this extra pain, but we don't know.

Faith wants to play soccer in the fall, but if the pain continues, will not be able to.  She would appreciate your prayers as she tries to rest, but also work on getting her body ready for soccer.