Forward and Back - BMT +26

Unscratchable Itch by Shel Silverstein

There is a spot that you can’t scratch
Right between your shoulder blades,
Like an egg that just won’t hatch
Here you set and there it stays.
Turn and squirm and try to reach it,
Twist your neck and bend your back,
Hear your elbows creak and creak,
Stretch your fingers, now you bet it’s
Going to reach – no that won’t get it-
Hold your breath and stretch and pray,
Only just an inch away,
Worse than a sunbeam you can’t catch
Is that one spot that
You can’t scratch.

Poor Sam has spent most of the night and day itching. The rash grew and grew.
The doctors decided that it probably IS graft-vs-host and they put him back on a drip of the immune-suppressant to get his level back to one that would keep this at bay.

The rash has subsided considerably but the itching - OY! The itching!
He's gotten creative and he's using a marker to itch down his back.
He's got a really strong topical ointment and some steroids via IV.
This too should pass....soon, I hope.

Of course, now we are on the lookout for the GVH to spread, which it hopefully won't.

It doesn't seem like this skin irritation should cause such consternation but I have definitely been on edge for the last day and a half. It seemed like he was making such awesome progress. This feels like a step backwards, even though it's not exactly backwards. It's more of a twist in the road, a hairpin curve where you have to go back a little in order to go forward...

The pole is back to its former size. This walk did not distract him from itching.

Trying to distract by coloring