February 11th, 2018

The past couple days have been busy and tiring.  Late on February 8th I got a CT scan of my gut and found that there a small infection going on.  This meant that I was going to have to start the antibiotics I have been trying to avoid.  In hind sight, I am ok with the way it worked out because I will be able to go home with no infection.

When I posted on Thursday my white cell count was at 60, today it is 301!  It is very likely I will cross 500 tomorrow morning and will get to go home.  I have been taking lots of naps.  Turns out that making new blood takes it out of you.

I am so excited to go home and be around my stuff.  It is easy to take everything for granted until something like this hits and you realize nothing is guaranteed.  When I went to urgent care back on January 13th I thought I would get some pills and still make it to the boat show that afternoon.  I have had one hell of a 30 day detour.

Going home is great and it marks the end of phase one of this journey.  I will get a week or two to build up my strengh before moving to phase two.  Phase two is called consolidation and this is roughly how it works.  Week 1, I get three rounds of chemo over three days then I go back home.  Weeks 2,3,4 I recover from week 1.   We repeat this process at least twice, then decide what phase 3 will be.  Options for phase 3 are a couple more rounds of consolidation chemo or a stem cell transplant. Doing the math, phase two will be two months, but I will live at home!