Day +27: A Week Home

Monday, I headed in for my second follow-up appointment. Like last week, I expected I'd get platelets and/or blood to boost my red blood cells. It's pretty par for the course, which describes much of this past week - routine. That doesn't mean it's been easy - it's a lot of daily cleaning for Stacy, not to mention taking care of the cat and dogs, which are mostly off limits to me for now, and taking care of me.

For me it's a lot of managing the ongoing side effects of my budding immune system and chemo-ravaged body. They've been pretty mild but sometimes not that mild, with occasional nausea, diminished appetite and altered taste buds. Not a great combo, but we're working through it and each day gets a tad better. For a couple days I had sinus congestion and a constant headache - a challenge when you can't take Advil or Tylenol. But that seemed to mostly clear on Sunday and so feeling better these last few days and here we are at day +26, more than a quarter of the way to day 100, a magical date when things open up a bit.

Even better news is that my blood counts have continued to climb and I needed no blood products yetserday! My platelet level jumped to 43k (10k is the level where they're thinking about giving you an infusion) and my hematocrit level also climbed sufficiently to avoid needing any red blood. Altogether it's good news and I continue to be on track. We are still trying to figure out why I have an elevated level of a marker for a fungal infection - it may very well be nothing, but we continue to investigate it - so we'll do some more scans next week just in case it's related to the sinus congestion, or if there's a fungal infection lurking somewhere in the body. My care team isn't worried and I'll try to follow their lead.

Try is the operative word. I'm working hard on acceptance and patience. Instead of hyper-focusing on every little twinge, I need to accept that this is a process - a long one, and not without it's stumbles and half-steps backward. And last night and this morning was definitely a step backwards. The sinus congestion and accompanying headache that had dissipated came back strong last night, bad enough to keep me up most of the night. I finally broke down around 3 am and took some Tylenol, which gave me a few hours of sleep. And I spoke to my NP today and am now on Flonase and Sudafed which is helping, and I have permission to take Tylenol as needed. 

As I slowly start to contemplate how I will start to add a few work hours to my daily routine, I need to remember that the milestones will come, slowly and surely. As always, it's hard to be rational when you're laying in bed with a washcloth on your eyes. Stacy's been amazing at constantly talking me off the ledge with little pep talks and rationality, reminding me to eat... little things. And it was only two weeks ago, my white blood cells were barely detectable and my platelets were at 6k. Now my white blood cells are halfway to normal levels, and my platelets are at 43k. It's a process. But it's progress.