Day +9 : Fancy Charts and Passing Time

 The recent exciting news was the posting of my Stem Cell Transplant Journey chart. It tracks my cell counts (white blood cells, absolute neutrophil count, hematocrit, and platelets). I'm trending downward as expected as the chemo does its trick. If you look closely enough, there was a slight uptick on Day +6 following the first of five Granix injections which aims to reduce the severity and duration of my neutropenia.

The low hematocrit and platelets will be treated with infusions. But for the white blood cells and absolute neutrophils, it's a waiting game for my blood counts to recover. Public service announcement: Platelets have a much shorter shelf life than whole blood, and they are always needed for patients like me. If you have ever donated blood or thought of it,  consider donating platelets. 

I started writing this post two days ago, and at that time I had written" I expect my counts to bottom out out over the next 2-4 days." And bottom out they did. Hematocrit and platelets continue to drop while my white blood cell count has dropped to 0.08 with my neutrophils at an undetectable level. 

And I feel the effects. The walking is more taxing, and as the day progresses, the fatigue builds a bit. 

The goal now,  is to stay healthy and wait for my counts, in particular my neutrophil count, to rebound. When it gets over 500 for two consecutive days, it's time to go home. Until then, I'm doing my best to make the days pass.

Get Out Of Bed

It's easy to stay in bed here. I can raise my head, raise my legs, control the lights, control the TV, call for the nurse, call for food. It's a one-stop kind of a place. But getting out of bed every day is key. For one, sitting in the chair and working on my laptop makes me feel less sick. And for another, keeping the bed reserved for sleeping helps me get a good* night's sleep (*good meaning only woken up once or twice in the wee hours of the morning for blood or vitals). 

It may seem counterintuitive but I find that keeping the TV off for a good part of the day helps. I've never been good at vegging out in front of the screen for long stretches and the same holds true in the hospital. So I try to avoid binge watching Seinfeld, The Office, or Modern Family which seem to be always on, and keep the TV off until after dinner when Jeopardy, and the sport du jour, comes on. Weekends, of course, have sports on all the time and so I take advantage of that and will watch whatever's on (although I might draw the line at watching cornhole tournaments on ESPN).

It ain't a lot but
gotta keep moving.

The Sound Of Music

I often forget to turn music on, and that's a mistake. The sound of music can have a profound effect on boredom and loneliness; even sad music can be uplifting. When the only constant noise in my quiet room is the cycling on and off of the HVAC unit, a little Spotify can do wonders to fill the space.

Of course, I also listen to music as I roam the halls of 4C. It's 95 feet from door to door. So picture your high school quarter mile track. Then take that track and divide it into fourteen even segments, that's the length of my corridor. 14 laps equals a quarter mile; 28 is a half; 56 is the full mile. 

It may not be a lot, but every day I'm trying to walk at least a mile. Mile by mile, lap by lap, step by step I'm getting closer to discharge.

When will that be? That's the $64,000 question. I'm hoping for next weekend, April 1-2, but it's a guess. Hopefully it's not beyond that.