Apparently Boredom Cuts Both Ways

Good Morning All:

From my first treatment regimen you may remember the post where I wrote about learning it was a good thing to be 'unremarkable'. I am pleased to write that I continue to be unremarkable and that perhaps I have even now lapsed into being 'boring'. The slight difference in connotation is this: Unremarkable means that despite a flurry of things to do, there is little comment or concern warranted from a medical standpoint. Boring, on the other hand, removes the flurry of things to do from the equation.

So where my earlier hospitalizations were for chemotherapy threatments, there was always changing out of medicines as it was a pretty complicated regimen. Those hospital stays lasted for just the duration of the treatment itself and I was released. But in so much as these stays didn't come with complications I was unremarkable.

Since I am being kept until my body recovers this time around, there is now little for anyone to do as it relates to my care. Nurses are here for 12 hour shifts and I'd say I see them three times, on average, during their shift. And these visits are for routine check ups etc.--nothing that particularly tests them as nurses. Since the risk of infection is so great right now, and treating that circumstance would NOT be boring, I receive many laudatory comments on just how boring I've become.

So while I'm bored with my hospitalization it is also comforting to know that the "Hospital" (or at least the medical staff, not necessarily the accounting department) is bored with me.

Finally, there has been a very nice undercurrent of interest and encouragement in my Magellan-like efforts to explore and solve the body's mystery of white blood cell production. I regret to inform you all that just after Friday's post I learned that, in fact, the production of white blood cells at this point would be an ominous signal that the chemotherapy was ineffective. I was told that it is more typical for white blood cells to start returning around day 21 (Friday was day 10). For that reason I have temporarily stopped my efforts at making my own white blood cells--sort of an avoidance of the be-careful-what-you-wish-for phenomenon. In the meantime, I am continuing to spend time daily envisioning/encouraging the cleansing of my bone marrow. I'll resume the quest for white blood cell production when it is time.

In the meantime we can all cheer the fact that my white blood cells are still "<50", and I continue to need regular transfusions of red blood cells and platelets about every third day (a tiny bit of exctitement for the night nurse as those usually happen over night). Seems like an odd thing to take comfort in, but here we are . . .

As always, thanks for reading.

--Russ.