Day 12

Yesterday was such a fun day! today I didn't do so much because I wore myself out a little bit. When your hemoglobin is 7.5, there is only so much excitement you can handle. In fact, I have to limit myself to one exclamation point per paragraph or I start to get short of breath.

I had a visit from the oncologist who did my bone marrow in Manch. It was nice to see him. I hadn't really seen him since he gave me the diagnosis and said very sternly that I needed to go to Lebanon. So here I am and a lot lot lot has happened since the last time I laid eyes on him. Interestingly, he has two other patients with AML from Manch, recently diagnosed. This would be a little cluster of disease. My theory about my leukemia is that whatever virus I had in March is the virus that integrated itself into a bad place in one white blood cell's DNA and set off the whole process. I imagine (because I have a good imagination) that the other two AML'ers got the same virus with the same effect. When I suggested this to Dr. Mannot, he said he didn't think the timing was exactly right, but, very graciously, that it was an interesting idea.

Emily and I got to watch a newly hatched (what I call) fish fly (she gave me the real name, but I am chemo brain) harden up on my fabulous picture window today. It was all white initially, then started developing some brown areas and spots and moving more and after a few hours, when the sun hit it, off it went. Tommie got a close up view of a Luna moth last week in the cafeteria window. It's been really nice to feel a little connected to the natural world even though I am in the most artificial environment I have ever been in. I am absolutely positive I have never spent 12 days without going outside before in my life.

Also, my friend Barbara from Home Health and Hospice came to visit me today which was lovely. We went for a little stroll, 0.77 miles according to run keeper and then I got an email from run keeper saying I had a new personal record! Most miles walked in a month. I also got a fabulous massage and am working on (not) getting a fever right now. I'm at like 100.4/100.5. Down, down, down.

Have you seen my rash? I thought not. It's just a run of the mill rash from my chemo, but I think it's kind of impressive looking. I'm going to try to figure out how to put the picture after jump in case you are not interested in seeing a picture of a) my stomach b) my icky rash c) both.

 

Also, you can see how pale my nails are.

For my doctor geek friends, you might wonder how a person with a white count of 0.2 could mount enough of an inflammatory reaction to do that. My new attending, Dr. Danilov assures me that it is because almost all of the peripherally circulating white blood cells I have are lymphocytes and they are doing what they do best. At least my allergies are better.

The rest of my counts are equally impressive platelets 8, hgb 7.5, ANC not calculated. I think my blood is being reduced to the minimal set. Despite these numbers, I feel pretty good.