November 12, 2006

This has certainly been a long journey. Since we drove back from California to be admitted last May it has been 184 days. Thank you for going along with me. Your support and prayers have helped make it bearable.

On November 5th my temperature had slowly risen to 102.4 so it was off to the hospital again. I have been admitted at Sunnyside oncology since the 5th and am going to be released today. In the hospital my temperature stayed around 102 to 104+ from the 5th till the 9th. By taking blood cultures the docs found that I had contracted a common strain of strep bacteria. After a few days of IV antibiotics the fever broke and the strep was gone. I will be finishing the IVs at home so Barbara and I will be taught proper PICC care and how to do the IVs before we can leave today.

My white blood counts are starting to climb. That is such a relief. I have had an ANC of 0 for many days. In the past 4 days it has risen to 396. Since the counts are rising, my sore mouth has gotten so much better and it is such a blessing to be able to chew and swallow without pain.

Now what? So now it is trying to stay healthy to keep the stem cell transplant on schedule. I will need to make up some labs and tests that were scheduled last week and complete other tests scheduled next week. Like a marathon runner my focus is set on race day, for me race day is transplant day, which is 12/1 or 12/2.

I have found that is best for Barbara and I to intimately learn what the individual steps are as I go through them. If we start dwelling on how much is left to be done, then we are overwhelmed. The mantra of take one day at a time has been one we have adopted for this process.

God has been so gracious to me through this. Again, I’m going home and have been home since chemo. The kind of chemo I had usually leaves people in the hospital for weeks. Since I don’t know much about the different medical processes, I rely on the nursing staff to give me what they normally see. They are the ones who are surprised to see me in the relatively good condition I’m in. ONLY GOD