Lymphocytes, Neutrophils, and Platelets, Oh My!

Lois and I were up and out early yesterday to get the blood draw. We had our bags containing our lunch, water, and jackets with the expectation we'd be there all day. If you've never spent time in Houston, you may not know that every place tends to over air condition. Of course, outside it's been hovering around a heat index of 107 this week so it feels great to go into a building. Unfortunately, when you spend all day in the hospital, it tends to get cold, even in August. Hence, the jackets. We walked up the seven floors of stairs and I checked in. I ran up and down a few more stairs and then my name was up so I ran in place until I got scanned and the phlebotomist was ready. I was so confident!

After the blood draw, Lois and I walked down to the Head and Neck Clinic to say hello to my new awesome friend, Linda (shout out to Margo for the introduction). It's eerily wonderful and weird how this whole cancer thing leads to wonderful relationships, opportunities to help people, and revelations about ourselves. It's like an exclusive club. One that we learn to appreciate, and yet hope no one else has to join (really, you don't want to join- trust me on this).

My white blood cells and platelets are really wanting to stay in Houston and they are achieving this by not multiplying like they should. When we saw the new nurse practitioner and Aunt Be, we learned that the numbers are still not where they should be. Aunt Be reassured me that this is completely normal and that we are no where near needing to reevaluate my status in the clinical trial. She said that the numbers are on an upward trend and that we should see some improvement by next week. When she asked whether I wanted to try Monday or Wednesday, Lois had the brilliant suggestion that we do it on Monday and if the numbers were not sufficient, I should try again on Wednesday. Aunt Be agreed. She also said that we started treatment with a high dose and that this may not be the optimal dose for me. Therefore, we will lower the dose a bit and check my numbers until we know we have the best dose for me as an individual, one where I will still get the chemo every three weeks with less stress on my immune system. However, this adjustment could take a while to get right. The one difficult thing that I need to be taking a bit more seriously is that since my immune system is so compromised, they want me to be very careful about being in public, hand washing, being exposed to people who are sick, being exposed to kids, etc. Hopefully no one is trying to kill me. A person with the flu would be the least expensive hit man ever!  

I told Aunt Be that I have named her that because she is always taking care of me and she said, "I like that!" So now she's stuck with that nickname. I promised her I would try to get my vitamins and I have by inventing a creamy green soup. I put three different recipes together that I found on the internet to come up with this tasty, high fat, highly nutritious concoction. The main ingredients are homemade bone broth (which took 2 days to make), super greens (kale and spinach), and cream cheese. There are a few other random ingredients like spices, onion, garlic, and butter. I also promised Aunt Be that I would continue to exercise. Lois and I have been continuing to meet at the park at 7 AM to walk our minimum 4 miles in the early morning 85-90 degrees. However, today I may have over worked myself because I was a little sick all day. I'm going to take tomorrow off to give myself a break from the heat. I'm such a slacker.  

I also got results from my last neuro cognitive exam, which was given a couple of months ago but I hadn't yet seen the results (I get them fairly regularly). The report said that my scores did not decline in any area. I stayed stable in some areas, and moved into the superior category on other areas. The summary states that there has been marked improvement from 5 months ago. So, yeah, I'm still smart. 

So, what's on for next week besides more blood work and hopefully a chemo infusion? I'm due for a scan but Aunt Be has to get in touch with Dr. No Naps to see when he wants to schedule it. Apparently Dr. No Naps is out of town. I wanted to ask where he went because I just really wanted to know where he would vacation. Kim and I told him he should go to Croatia and he has suggested that he likes to travel a bit. Plus he's a world renowned oncologist so I'm going to guess he isn't restricted financially. So he's probably not in Galveston for two weeks. I'm going to guess that since he lives in Houston and it's so damn hot here in August, that he's gone someplace that's not hot this time of year. Iceland? Alaska? Scandinavia?  If any of my friends in Norway run into him, give him a shout out for me.