Day 13 - ANC > 500, yeah!

Day +13 and counts continue to go up. My ANC this morning was 570, which is very cool. 500 is a bit of a milestone; if you're less than that # you're seriously at risk for getting some nasty infection so getting above 500 is a big milestone (yesterday I was at 270). Red blood cells and platelets have not yet started to climb but I've so far avoided a red blood cell transfusion. My crit this morning was 24.8 (normal for an adult male is 40-50) so I'm still feeling the effects of low crit but things continue to go in the right direction. We're hopeful that tomorrow we'll be able to stop doing the IV antibiotics. I'm getting 5 infusions a day for antibiotics - 1 in the clinic and 4 at home. It's a major PITA so it will be great to get that off our plate. Our first infusion starts at 5:30 in the morning and the last one finishes about 11-11:30 at night so it makes for a long day.

I'm also continuing to really dislike neupogen. It's helping my immune system reload so it's A Good Thing but it's giving me major sinus headaches. At times I feel like I have a hot poker sticking into my right eyebrow and other times it manifests itself as throbbing pain at the base of the back of my head, just above my neck. But these are all good pains, indicating that my immune system is rockin' and rollin'. So I'm trying to grin and bear it but I'm certainly ready to be done with this part of the journey.

Today we got out for a nice walk around old town Louisville and looked at some neat houses. There are a bunch of fun streets in Louisville where folks have upgraded little bungalows and it was fun to see what people have done with these properties.

One other fun and super geeky thing we did today was to play network scrabble against each other. We were at the infusion center, playing each other over the Internet. Another great way to waste time while I sit in the big chair and get dosed with fluids and antibiotics. Today was the 26th day in a row I've been down to the hospital or clinic so I'm really looking for the matter transporter to get me there but so far we've been stuck with more conventional means of transport.

Ok, that's it for now! I wouldn't say that we're out of the woods yet but I think we can see the edge of the forest from where we're standing. Another few days  of clean living and we'll hopefully be over the top.

Thx for checking in! Hope you're having a good weekend, and remember that One Fun Thing a day is a good way to live life :)