ASCT Day +8

Last night I got a good night's sleep, and I also spent a lot of time this morning napping.  I just felt like being a slug today.

My back itching (probably folliculitis) has finally started to get better. Today I didn't need a pill, and a couple of applications of Benadryl ointment seemed to do the trick.

My counts came back pretty good today.  My WBC stayed steady at 0.07, which might mean the worst is over.  The nurses expect it to start going up again, possibly by tomorrow.  The hematocrit actually went up from 24.9 to 25.4, so I am hopeful that I won't need a blood transfusion.  My platelets dropped from 93 to 57, still well above the threshold of 10 that would necessitate a platelate transfusion.

The attending physician who saw me today said I was doing A+ so far.  That's good news, especially since I still have no mouth sores and I don't feel sick, aside from an occasional bout of nausea, which usually fades quickly.

I've been getting daily shots of Neupogen to help stimulate stem cell growth.  I came across a medical article from the Mayo Clinic which said that the Neupogen didn't help and actually caused more side effects.  Now the Mayo Clinic doesn't use Neupogen on post-transplant patients.  I emailed a copy of the article to Dr. Richardson, asking his views.  His rather succinct response was "suggest you need it and will be coming by to see you."  I guess that settles that.

I am now looking forward to going home.  I am nominally scheduled to go home next Tuesday (Day +14), but I have high hopes of getting out of here as early as Sunday (Day +12).  That will all depend on how quickly my WBC goes up so that my absolute netrophil count (ANC) is high enough.

When Gloria and Bernie were here, they gave me a game called Find It, which is a clear plastic cylinder filled with plastic pellets, within which are hidden about 50 objects.  It's quite addictive to try identifying all the objects by shaking and rolling the cylinder until an object comes into view.  One of the objects is a penny, and whoever finds it gets a bonus for reading the date on the penny.  So far, Jeff, Holly, Gretchen, and I have all been working diligently to find all the objects, but none of us has yet found the penny.

I almost hate to admit this, but while I was dozing off this afternoon, I dreamed that I found the penny.  What a pitiful life I must lead to dream of finding a penny.  Why not the Lottery, for cripes sake?