Day 17

More platelets then sleep. Watched a couple of soccer games today so that was a nice break from csi and law and order...which i'm watching now. White count still holding strong at nothing. Shocker, huh? Mom and Brit came over tonight and humored me for a few hours while i gave them an earful of nurse rants. haven't been outside in almost four weeks but i hear there was a nice break in the hot weather so i'm glad everybody got some nice weekend weather. i've developed a habit of keeping it pretty cold in here and then bundling up to get warm. the nurses keep trying to turn off the thermostat. don't they understand that i like the unnecessary process of warming up instead of cooling off? Brit just recently accepted a position as a nurse here at MD Anderson, so when the evening man nurse showed up to change the bandage that covers the port that is sticthed into my shoulder, she took advantage and did some observing. this apparently threw man nurse off a little bit because he proceded to sissify me by cleaning the crap out of my shoulder with a little too much elbow grease. nothing says humiliation like inflicting pain with a cotton swab. thanks, man nurse. that was the apex of my day. boring is good.

alright, take care.

Day 16

Technically its been day17 for about 3 hours now, but i this is going to be short so whatever. got platelets and blood today, and those always make me feel a little better. white count is at zero still. checked with doc just to confirm that nothing crazy is going on and she set me at ease, saying engraftment usually happens within 14-28 days, and that i'm on the early side right now. see what happens when some of you folks start freaking me out? anyway, throat pain is just short of a distant memory. doc said to me the yesterday that it looked like i was retaining some fluid. i didn't necessarily agree until i started hitting the head every five minutes this morning. got plenty of sleep last night and even a nap this morning but here i am swooning in front of the laptop again. think i just took a nap with eyes open looking at the screen, so that's a good sign to hang it up. gonna concentrate on keeping it as "boring" as possible, as the rounding doc puts it. okay take care.

Day 15

Everything is running right along today. No change in anything today. Gonna catch up on some winks. Take care.

Day 14

Oh man, today was great. Lots of rest and almost no new predicaments. Only thing new going on is that at some point yesterday when my platelets were really low, i must have sneezed or coughed at some point, which caused some scleral hemorrhaging (the white of my eyes bled). so about half of both whites of my eyes are blood red, but it hasn't affected my vision at all. this actually happened to me last year, only it was in my retina, so that time i experienced some focal loss of sight. that said, its painless, and will go away on its own. the cool part is that catholics have praying to me outside my door all day. j/k. my throat is much better, although i was a little to ambitious in choosing my supper tonight; still need to stick to soft foods for now.

my counts for today were low across the board, so i needed blood and platelets again. the docs have boosted my platelet level up to try and prevent any further bleeding from the eyes or any other miracles i may perform. white count is still somewhere below 0. fyi, i'm not sure what amount these numbers are indicative of or if they're percentages or what, but the normal level for a white count is anywhere from 4-11. normal ratio for hemaglobin is 14-18,(anything below that is considered anemic, which can be indicative of many things so don't freak out if you ever hear that your hemaglobin is low... but definitely ask why, lol) and normal platelet count is 140-440. when i was got a call that something was wrong with me, i entered the hospital with a white count of 1.7, hemaglobin at 4, and platelets at 0. i didn't know what any of this meant at the time, but it sure made the doctors and nurses whisper whenever they heard those numbers, so i took it that my levels had seen better days. right now they are trying give my white cells a boost with the neupogen shots i had mentioned earlier so that my body can start fighting off germs again. with hemaglobin, they try to keep me at 8 or above, and they just bumped my low platelet level up to 30. i finished getting chemo two days before i had the transplant and it killed off as many fast growing cells as it could (hair follicles, mouth tissue, epidermis, etc.) in a short time and is supposed to be gone by the time they introduce the donor cells, so when my body finally recovers and the donor cells take the place of the old cells (sort of) then i should start producing all of this stuff again, and will no longer need transfusions as much. it could take as much as a year for my counts to actually get back to normal. so, i know that was an extremely rudimentary explanation, but i hope that gives a little insight into these numbers i keep spewing out daily. i know there are at least two doctors and a nurse reading this so please don't call me out for the idiot that i am, but feel free to correct or add anything pertinent to the subject. okay, take care, and sorry about all typos and grammatical errors. yes, i am actually that lazy.

Day 13

Okay, caught up on a little sleep from the last couple of nights, even though it was all during the day. Pretty sure if i turn the laptop and tv off for five minutes that i'd konk out pretty quick tonight, too. Went to bed at a reasonable hour last night but was wide awake pretty soon dealing with some massive decongestion and a throat that was about 80% swollen shut. i have to admit that as slovenly sloppy as i can come off at times, i absolutely hate the whole spitting process. pretty much up there on my short list of gross outs. eventually, the pain meds made me nauseated and since my gag reflex was pretty high already... it was a long night that played out into a long morning. eventually the pain subsided and my throat got a little better and i was able to get some sleep, which is always a huge relief to me. as long as the pain doesn't keep me from sleeping, i consider in manageable, and i've only had a few nights where it hasn't been manageable, and for that i'm extremely thankful.

for those select few of you that are paying attention to nothing but my white count as a good/bad meter, today it came back as a big beautiful zero! while it would be nice for this number to start rising, i'd like to point out that I'M OKAY RIGHT NOW! please don't forget that not only is it very common for these counts to have not picked up yet, but that there are many other things that factor into my well being. i haven't lost focus of that, and i would ask for you not to lose focus as well. i'm not nitpicking as much as i am just asking for your support. the only thing that stresses me out is when other people start to stress out, so let's all just relax and let this thing play out. at that point if there is any bitching and moaning to be done, then i promise i'll join right in! thank you guys for caring. thanks to britnee and mom dropping by today and putting up with me! take care.

Day 12

Nothing new under the sun. Need sleep. Goodnight.

Day 11

White count still a big fat goose egg! Nobody seems to be concerned with this yet so i'm not going to waste my time worrying either. In fact, had to have two units of blood today, so the docs must hit me up with some pretty strong chemo. this is a good thing, because it just means that its that much more likely that they were able to kill off all of the cancer cells. still won't know for a while, but hoping to see at least some white cell activity within the next three days. mom stopped by to hang out for a couple of hours today. went to bed at midnight last night, got up at 7, then was knocked out again for blood, didn't get up again until 1pm. good sleep time. my back is no longer rejecting this funky mattress. feeling pretty dang good. only downside now is my mouth and throat, which feel like they will combust from the friction of swallowing. the pain is definitely manageable except for when eating. have lost 16 pounds since being admitted, which is by no means a bad thing. okay, that's pretty much it! take care.