Better Numbers

I had my labs redrawn yesterday at the bone marrow clinic. They are improved from last thursday, and my doctor thinks the "blip" is just my bone marrow resetting itself. He did have me back off some on my running since exercise can drop your white blood cell count. Who knew? I've never had a doctor tell me to exercise less. That's a first.

Anyway, we do get to leave Dec 25th on our trip. (Leaving on a jet plane...) The numbers were white cells 2.5 with 30% neutrophils, hemoglobin 13.0, and platelets 158,000. Everything is normal except the white cell count. At least my neutrophils have come up out of the dangerous range and are above 500. Just to be safe, we've decided to cancel the side trip from California to Oregon. I don't want to tempt fate and get into any health issues out on the cross country ski trail.

When I was checking into the lab yesterday, Kristen, the young girl with the fancy shoes, was checking out. She did not seem happy, and they made her another appointment for Dec 29th. Apparently something is going on with her labs too, and she got bad news. I know how she feels. We almost had to cancel our whole trip to Kansas and California, the first after 7 months of chemo and blood transfusions and pneumonia medications. Christmas is no time to hear you have to be galavanting back and forth to the clinic for anything, even if you are wearing fancy red leather pointy toed shoes. She had a transplant for aplastic anemia when her bone marrow just stopped working. The last time I saw her, she was so happy, sitting in the blue recliner next to me, waiting to drive home several hours away after her transplant and other treatments ("I've been here 43 days," she said to me). This bone marrow stuff is hard. There's the hard of I have a life threatening illness; there's the hard of chemo and other treatments, and there's the hard of whatever else the bone marrow just decides to do like quit making blood cells or reject the transplant or make a new cancer. Well that's just the life we're going to have, one that lacks even the illusion of control. I'm still trying to get used to it.

Photo:My nephew Ethan with Lacy the Rein Dog