day +16; fuck, yeah!

Oops, sorry for the potty mouth title to this post. But that's basically the way I'm feeling today. Like, fuck yeah, I'm getting my mojo back! A big milestone today in many ways. Let me count the ways today has been awesome:

• ANC is up to 3200. This is well inside the normal range of 1500-7000. This also means that today was my last shot of Neupogen. Neupogen is one of the wonder drugs that is great in what it does (boost WBC production) but not that much fun to take - makes me feel like I have a mild case of the flu. So getting off of the Neupogen is huge and having such a big jump in ANC (was 1880 yesterday) is another strong sign that my bone marrow is rockin' and rollin'. 
• Today is my last day of antibiotics. I've been getting infused 5 times/day with antibiotics, which pretty much sucks. So to be done with that is another huge sign that our lives are starting to return to something like normalcy.
• RBCs are up. Today is the first day in weeks where my red blood cell population has increased. Another good sign that my bone marrow is recovering from the chemo. Plus, low RBCs (aka anemia) make you feel like shit. Sort of like hiking uphill at 20,000 feet with a bad case of the flu. 
• We get a day off tomorrow! For the first time in 26 days we don't have an appt at the blood center or hospital. Gee, what will we do with our time? Oh, yeah, how about living life? Yeah, let's do that.
• Next week I get 3-teat Pete out - probably Wednesday. It's been awesome being able to have all these things go in and out of my bloodstream without getting stuck with a needle but having a 3 port central venous line hanging out of your chest is a very obvious sign that you are in the middle of a medical shit storm. So Pete's done a great job but I'll be happy to get the little three headed hydra out of my chest.
• Headaches are gone. I've been getting some pretty nasty headaches and apparently this can be caused by one of the anti-nausea meds I've been on. We've stopped the Kytril and - whammo! - no more headaches. Kytril can also cause constipation so getting rid of the headaches and also getting my plumbing to flow a bit better are two huge steps in the right direction.
• I feel BETTER. Today is the first day in a month where at times I've pretty much felt normal. No headaches, reasonable energy, no nausea, appetite improving, GI tract happy. I got out for a quick walk this morning, did a brief spin on the bike and am planning on a longer walk here this afternoon. 
• Felt so good at lunch that we had an impromptu dance session when Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" came on the radio. This has been a favorite song of ours (I bet you can guess what color eyes Susan has :) and it was great to feel good enough to bring the Geo-dance (complete with T-rexxing!) out for a brief practice session. And then I immediately started crying. Tears streaming down my face. I feel like I've been under water or submerged in illness for the last 3 weeks and to feel like I'm coming back into the world is incredibly powerful. Couple that with a favorite song and dancing with your sweetie and if that doesn't make you cry, you don't have a heart. At least that's my story and I'm stickin' with it!

So, yeah, it's been a good day. I'm looking forward to another 10,000 good days (that would put me at about  80 years of age) and the work over the last month is setting me up for a good long time in this space, with loving friends, family and lots of trails still to mountain bike. And to quote one of my favorite movies, "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice".