My red blood cell counts are still down, but my white blood cells continue to climb. Friday I was at 0.4, Saturday I was 0.8, and today (Sunday) I'm at 2.6. I've been told that I need to get to 3.0 to be eligible for release from the hospital and to go back to the apartment. Our hopes are high for this week.
I continue to be very tired and my stomach is still kind of acidic, which affects my appetite. However, seeing and hearing about the condition of many of my blood brothers and sisters here on the floor, I count my blessings. There is tremendous suffering going on behind many of the doors I walk by when I do my walking, and it saddens me greatly, but it also helps me keep my own situation in perspective.
One new side-effect that showed up yesterday is bone pain. We had read about bone pain in the literature, but now that I'm cranking out loads of new white blood cells I'm experiencing it first hand. Apparently my marrow is working so hard at producing cells that it's making some of my bones hurt, specifically my pelvis. Yesterday afternoon my lower back started to hurt, which I thought was due to too much sitting and bed time. The nurse, however, suggested that it might be bone pain. After an hour or two it ramped up some more, and I cried uncle and requested pain meds. She gave me Darvon. My bone pain laughs at Darvon. We switched to Dilaudid. Oh yeah! The pain pretty much disappeared, and I got a nice little four-hour float on Cloud 9. They gave me a half-dose at midnight to see me through until morning. I'm not really sure I needed it, but who am I to just say no to drugs? So far today I'm fairly pain free, but as they are giving me daily shots to promote wbc production, I may have cause to call on my friend D another time or two.
Please keep your fingers crossed for the possibility of my hospital discharge this week.