My Hilly Accomplishment

We are in Asheville having left the Triangle early Thursday afternoon. We wanted to leave early so that we could meet up with Susan for a trip to the Pisgah Brewing Co which has a tasting room open Thursdays from 4p-8p. Pisgah is the only brewery in Asheville that we have never visited. They had a big open field by their tasting room with a bluegrass band playing. It felt like a picnic because they were grilling food for sale while people played horseshoes, bocci ball, and frisbee golf in the field. Jill, Holly's sister, got to sample a real slice of Asheville what with the beer, the music, and all the hanging out.

Yesterday my clinic visit went well; all of my counts are increasing. I am doing well. For some unexplained reason, my doctor and physician assistant want to see me in the clinic next Wed for a regular visit and then start my chemo the following week. I had been told that my next round would start on Tuesday Sept 2, but that has now been pushed back to Sept 8th or 9th. While I will enjoy the extra time as my bone marrow makes more and more blood and white cells, I wanted to get on to the next round of chemo as soon as possible (the sooner to be done with the whole course you see). But I am not in control of these things, and I keep getting reminded of that, darn it.

After my clinic visit yesterday, I drove to Carrboro to see my pal Leo before he moves his family to Texas to start their new lives. They were in their apartment even though the movers had already taken their furniture. I finally got to meet his two girls Isabel and Alejandra. Of course, we took some pictures shown above.

Since we are now in Asheville, I wanted to do my hill run this morning. It was 63F and still a bit foggy when I started. Last w-e when Holly and I did the hill run, it was more of a hill walk for me. I was just too out of breath to jog up that steep hill behind our house. I was quite excited today to be able to jog the entire hill, go down the back side, and then run it again in reverse. What an improvement in one short week-to run 4 miles with 2 rather steep hills. Fantastic!

We'll be enjoying the Labor day w-e here in Asheville. Holly and Jill have just gone off to Beaver Lake to bird watch while I make brownies. You have a good Labor day too.

Incredible Lightness of Being

My friend Susan sent me the blog site of Jane Curran, a chaplain in Asheville who needs a bone marrow transplant to combat her bone marrow diseases. You know if you look around just a little you will always find people worse off than you. Jane has 3 different bone marrow diseases all smoldering along. She needs the definitive treatment that a bone marrow transplant can provide, but her insurance is denying it at present. They say she is not sick enough. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to be fighting fibrosis, anemia, leukemia and lymphoma. She is being treated by the transplant team at Wake Forest but came to Duke for a second opinion. Her doctor here, Dr Rizzieri who took care of me in the hospital, also agreed that she needed a transplant. Maybe the second opinion will convince her insurance company to do the right thing.

Reading her blog gives me much insight and perspective. I realize how lucky I am that I only have 1 bone marrow disease and that I am already on a treatment path. I am lucky to have a timetable for my treatments. I am lucky that I am not waiting for insurance to agree with my doctor's plan. I am grateful for many things.

My counts have continued to climb. My platelets are 309,000, HgB is 9.9, and the white cell count is 3200. They are checking to make sure I don't need to be seen Monday (Labor Day) before I go into the hospital Tuesday to start the next round of chemo. So we will likely head off to Asheville this afternoon for the long w-e. We plan to do some hiking, eating out, enjoying friends, etc.

Jill, Holly's sister, flew in yesterday and will stay with us for the week. Happy to have the help and company.

The Incredible Kindness of Friends

My friend Gail came down to visit while I was in the clinic on Monday. She and Chris had gone to the mtns for a golfing w-e and brought me back a pair of boxer shorts with dachshunds on them. The package says you just drop them in water and they become a full fledged pair of boxers complete with my little hotdog all over them. I haven't done the water thing yet but I will. I am still so amazed that can work. I wonder if they puff up like all those toys we dropped in water at my birthday party. They blew up into sea creatures. Thanks for thinking of me you two.

Also, I have to credit Marty and Deb with bringing back excellent chocolate pecan bark from their trip to Boston (Furlong's cottage candies). Deb's mother turned 90 so they had a big party for her just a while ago. They generously picked up a huge box of the dark chocolate bark for me and Holly. I'll have you know my weight is up to 124#, and I am sure it is all because of you two. We only have a few pieces left, and it was so yummy. Thanks for that. That extra weight will make a difference next week when I have to go back into the hospital again for 5 days of chemo.

We have been getting a good rain all night and this morning. I hope that Asheville and Western NC has gotten some too. They are in an extreme drought and need it even more than we do here. My garden there was very crispy.

Today's photo-tried to capture the box of Furlong's candy and those (dehydrated) boxer shorts so that you could see them.

5,000 meters

My counts looked so good yesterday that they gave me a few days off from the clinic. I don't have to go back until Thursday morning. Once the counts start trending up and I don't need a transfusion of blood or platelets, they start spacing out the clinic appts. I always wonder what the cell count numbers are doing exactly while I'm staying home. Prior to this I never thought about my cell counts. I guess you could say that I took them for granted like so many other things in my life (good health, a terrific job, being able to travel whenever I want, that I'd have all the time in the future to do whatever I want...). But like all things we take for granted, a small change in circumstance erases all of that. Now I care whether my white cell count is above or below normal because it determines whether I can fight off infection. I care whether my red blood cell hemoglobin mumber is 8 or 11 because it determines how much energy I'll have; how easily I can do something strenuous like jogging or rowing without getting short of breath. I have to say that it's made me more appreciative of all the ways our bodies keep us going by regenerating all those important cells, by making us rest so that we rejuvenate ourselves, by making us feel good when we move or exercise so that we work different parts of our body and spread the blood around.

On that note, I went for a little jog yesterday morning around the neighborhood. Just 3 miles with my fuzzy bald head wrapped in a bandanna to catch the sweat. I had to walk at one point to catch my breath, but it felt good. My legs are a little sore from not jogging enough lately. This morning I did a row and felt so good that I did 5,000 meters instead of 4,000 m. Ah, progress. I'll try to build up as much as possible before I have to go back into the hospital next week for the next round of chemo. It does seem that I lose less fitness if I really try to make progress in between the chemo rounds. So that is what I am doing.

My pal Leo from the Drew clinic is leaving soon to go back to Texas to take a faculty job with his old residency. We have been pals at my clinic in Burlington and did lots of lunchtime walks together before I went out with my leukemia. I think that tomorrow is his last day in the clinic. I am really going to miss him and all of his interesting stories from Columbia (the country), becoming an ER physician there, and his long journey to get through learning english, extra tests & a second residency so that he could practice medicine here in the US. Our clinic will really miss his humor and positive energy. But I know that he and his family will enjoy this next phase as he and his wife teach at the residency and medical school way out there in El Paso. Good luck, Leo!

Luv That Asheville Experience

We did indeed go to Asheville on Friday after Holly got home from work. The poor girlfriend had a hard day and has a talk she has to give on Sept 16th. So she worked on her computer putting her presentation together during the trip over and back to Asheville. We went to our favorite pizza place Friday night. I enjoyed their spinach burger and french fries while Holly had a big ole pizza to herself.

Saturday was a perfect day. We ate pecan sticky buns and chocolate croissants then went hiking at Graveyard fields on the Parkway. It was one of those ideal weather days with low humidity and cool temperatures (63F at the top). The clouds were those fluffy white puffballs that are so nice on a clear day. We hiked for about 2 hours then did some scouting for the Team Event we are planning for April with folks. We want to hike the Shut -In trail that goes from Mt Pisgah to the Bent Creek/Arboretum area. So we looked at the trailheads for both the start and the finish checking on parking and planning logistics a bit for April. The Graveyard fields trail has water falls at both ends of the trail, so we saw it all. The views were very scenic up on Mt Pisgah because of the low humidity and lack of haze.

Then we met up with Susan and Donna to go try out the new tasting room at the Wedge brewery. Asheville has really become a microbrew beer town with 5 locations to tour a brewery and taste their recipes. This one is in the River District, an area that has been reclaimed for artist studios. After that we went to dinner at that fabulous Cuban fusion place, Salsas, that always gets written up in magazines. Yummy food as always. We walked by the Goombay festival downtown then went to the Hop ice cream place near the house for ice cream sundaes. Of course, the best part of all was getting to spend the evening with Susan and Donna. It was such an unexpected treat.

Sunday morning Holly and I walked up the hill that we usually do as our run together. I was out of breath but happy to be doing our regular thing. Then I met Billie for a walk and lunch. It was so good to catch up and to see her Mom doing so well too. Again Holly had to do the work thing and put that talk together for her conference coming up. We headed back after cleaning up the house a bit.

I'm in the clinic now just waiting on a copy of my labs. All of the counts are doing great- my white cells are up to 1200 from 400, the platelets are now normal at 155,000, and my hemoglobin is 10.3. I won't have to return to the clinic until Thursday. They are tentatively planning to put me back in the hospital next week on Tuesday Sept 2nd for the next 5 days of chemo.
Hopefully we'll head to Asheville again this w-e and celebrate labor day there.

Todays photo-this was waiting for me spelled out on the kitchen counter when I went to fix my morning beverage. Jelly beans of all things!

All Blood Counts Rising, Yippee!

They gave me the w-e off from the clinic. All of my blood counts are rising again. Yippee! My platelets were up from 24,000 to 32,000. My hemoglobin increased from 10.3 to 10.7 (giving me an especially good row workout this morning), and my white cell count was up from 300 to 400. So I am officially on the mend. Holly and I will probably head to Asheville later today with all of this good news.

Early and Busy

We are already up and at it at 8:30am sitting in the Duke blue recliner. This is the earliest appt I've had since I started coming to the bone marrow transplant clinic. They have already taken my blood pressure, temp, and all of that as well as my lab tests. Now we are just waiting for the lab results to come back to see which, if any, blood products I need. And of course, I need to be seen the provider who is taking care of me today. They use several mid-level providers to staff the clinic, a mix of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants. Most of them have been working with the team for 5 years or more. They are quite adept at dealing with all the weird things that pop up in these immune suppressed patients. One guy has so many different infections, both bacterial and fungal, that they collaborate with the Infectious Disease service to take care of him and email back and forth referring to him as "Mr Bugs."

Yesterday, they asked me if I wanted to have Friday off and come back over the w-e or come to the clinic on Friday and be off on the w-e. Well that's an easy choice for me. So here I am on Friday being seen. I do hope to get the w-e or even part of the w-e off. If we do get the w-e off, Holly and I may head for Asheville. We haven't been to the mountains in a while, and it would be good to get away. We haven't exactly had a vacation though we did get to the beach for 2 different w-e's earlier. That was so nice.

I don't have my numbers yet. Maybe I'll update once I have them. One good note, the blurry vision seems to be resolving on its own. That certainly argues that it was due to the chemo I had 2 weeks ago.