[Lisa V]

Dena, a lot depends on how you react to the medications, but it seems unlikely you'll need anyone there 24/7.

When Ken had his first ATG, most of the difficulties he had post-treatment were due to high doses of cyclosporine and prednisone, both of which were subsequently tinkered with, so by the time of his second one he was able to go right back to work without missing a beat. The cyclo made him feel really tired and also fuzzy-headed, shaky and hoarse, and the prednisone made him very irritable, in addition to some other physical side effects (thrush, rash). Basically he wasn't up to working or driving for a few weeks, was cranky and couldn't seem to communicate as well as he'd like, so it was basically just a matter of me driving him places or picking up things, and running interference for him with the medical providers, etc. I also gave him his Procrit and Neupogen shots (not part of the standard protocol), made sure he took his meds, and kept track of all of it, but it wasn't like I couldn't leave him alone or anything.

Of course he was lucky in that he didn't have any serum sickness or adverse reaction to the ATG itself. If he had, there would probably have been more caregiving involved. It certainly isn't in the same league as having a SCT, even an autologous one. Just out of curiosity, what was the transplant for, and did you develop AA post-transplant?