Not much different from Christmas in prison.

I’m a little blue now. I miss watching Kassie open her presents and pontificate on that this is the best ever present. Kassie and Molly are coming by for a real short visit, but it should be great. I haven’t seen them in about 10 days now. I really hope they get here soon.

Anyway my white counts are creeping up to 0.9 so I’m guessing 12/28 for a release date, kind of like onto parole at home.

Kassie drew a big heart on my come home calendar for Dec 23

Better news at 5am this morning. My WBC has skyrocketed to 0.8, so given this progression I should be at 2.0 or better tomorrow and they can release me to go home for Christmas. This is probably a bit of a pipe dream, but it feels like a possibility, I haven’t run it past my doctor yet.

Anyway I feel almost normal except for a new cough. I went down and got a chest XRay yesterday, and I managed to do the whole thing without blacking out. So far my lungs are clear.

I did see something yesterday to wrench me out my happy reality for just a momement. They wheeled out one of the other cancer patients who’s been here since 11/20 to take him down to XRay. He looked just beaten, sunken eyes, very yellow, no acknowledgement that he cared to go on with any more treatments. The sad part is this could have been me had things not worked out quite so well.

While I think it scares people when I mention it, if this NHL does reoccur again someday I really don’t think I’m going to be in favor of going through massive chemo followed my a stem cell transplant again. I think I’ve followed the onocologist prescribed options for a while, and if there is a next time I want to try clinical trials, or simply getting the disease back into remission with a minimimum of chemo or easier drugs like Rituxin. At some point your quality of life really counts. I can’t imagine these people I’ve heard who’ve been on chemo for 5 years or longer. I don’t know that I’ll hold to this prediction if the time ever comes, but I also think I’ve really beaten it back for good this time.

White Blood Cell Counts are up

Great news today. After 8 days of waiting my counts have finally gone from less than 0.1 to 0.2 officially. So my stem cells are actually producing white blood cells again. I know they might go up and down a little from here, but this is great news. When they get to about 1.0 they let me go home and break out of my HEPA filtered prison. Home will then be the next great adventure.

Mom’s gone home

Well it’s a bit lonely on the ward tonight. Micki just left to cover Kassie and Molly as they sleep and my Mom had to go back and take care of my Dad so he doesn’t go too stir crazy. The good news is I’m feeling pretty decent. Worst event of the day was vomiting up one of the meds.

So right now no fever, pretty perky engery levels, a mouth that has sores, but is still usable, a blood blister that finally broke above my catheoder and the ever present need to run to the bathroom dragging my pole every two hours.

Micki cheered me up a lot, I think she’s getting better sleep with Joan here helping. She got me to play putt-putt golf in the hallways and we worked halfway through a puzzle. She’s always been good at being a spark plug.

I said tonight to Kassie over the phone and I sorta lost it. I’m really sensing how much I miss seeing, holding, kissing, Kassie and Molly. Hopefully a few more days and the counts will be back up. I really need to get out of the cell.

My stem cells are back

I slept most of the day they reinfused my stem cells. It’s a little bit of a non-event it only takes ten minutes. Today has been better, but I stil nap a lot. They’re a bit worried about by bloody noses, but I had millions of bloody noses as a kid so I’m not so concerned. I can eat again, basically a simple diet of Special K, warm 7-UP, spaghetti, PBandJ, and the occassional ice cream. Given the time I have left I can make it.

My White Blood Cells spiked down to 0.1 on a good scale of 4-11 today so I’m all setup for my old stem cells to takeover. Sorta scary tough knowing how easily it is to be infected.

On a high note I got a round little box from the Gibbscrew memebers with a spanking new iPod. It’s engraved “Eddie’s iPod Get Well Soon! Oww!” which I’m taking as a cameo refernce.

Things have reached a bit of a routine, Kassie is making a short trip over after school, because she misses her Dad. Mom is here in the morning and afternoon. And Micki brings over dinner late and hangs out. Nice to have a safety net.