I always felt a little sad when I was a little girl and saw the "No shoes, no shirt, no service" sign on diners in West Virginia. The way I figured it, if a poor bum couldn't afford shoes or a shirt, he should at least be able to get a meal.
Why do I bring this up? I'm thinking of getting a T-shirt that reads, "No shoes, no sushi, so surfing," to sum up my life for the next few months. (Well, technically, it should read "no shoelessness," but that would ruin the poetry.)
I'm developing a better understanding of this auto stem cell transplant (ASCT) process. (And, yes, even though I've received the reinfusion of my stem cells, the "process" is just beginning.) As you may recall from a former post, the ASCT is performed as a "rescue procedure" to recover from the massive doses of chemo. I thought it was a linear procedure: slam down blood with chemo, build up blood with reinfused stem cells.
In reality, the chemo is continuing to slam down the blood, even as I type this. And the stem cells are getting ready to learn to produce their own blood components at the same time. In the meantime, I have daily blood draws and receive transfusions when my counts fall below doctor-specified limits. I received my first red blood transfusion this morning.
For the next couple weeks, these daily blood count reports will provide my daily drama, so I'm going to start posting them on the blog as well. (Numbers in parentheses are normal ranges.)
WBC .4 (4.0-11)
RBC 2.3 (3.8-5.2)
HGB 8.7 (11.5-15.5)
PLT 24 (150-350)
Yesterday I experienced a few hours of the proverbial, mowed-over-by-a-fleet-of-Mac-trucks exhaustion, but today I've felt wonderfully "normal" all day.
Now I'm feeling run-of-the-mill, haven't-slept-more-than-three-hours-a-night-for-a-week tired. And guess what? That's a glorious feeling. I'm looking forward to lots of peaceful ZZZs tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment