October 5: Almost There

Dear friends and well-wishers, this update is coming to you more than half a day late! When I got back from the hospital last night I was too exhausted to sit at my lapto.  I went straight to bed.

Sujata’s blood counts last night were a bit lower from the numbers a couple of days ago. The nurses told me that they feel that the counts might be very close to the bottom of the curve, which means they are poised to start their upward climb, perhaps over the weekend. A slow, but steady, climb to normalcy is what we are hoping and praying for.

Now for some specifics, for those of you who like details – last night Sujata’s White blood cell stood at 0.7, and her absolute neutrophil number was 0.3, which is one the numbers that the doctors and nurses seem to track very closely. Neutrophils are components of the white blood cell family. They form the first line of defense against bacterial infections. The lower they are (normal range 1.9 to 8.) the more vulnerable a person becomes to attacks by even the most commonly found bacteria that surround us in daily life. Another important metric, the Platelet count, an indicator of the ability of the blood to clot, is down to 28 (normal range 150 to 450). In Sujata’s case, these numbers have brought with them fatigue, some nausea and frequent stomach cramps. And, of course, very very strict restriction on visitors.

I plan to be at the hospital tonight and over the weekend, so my next update, maybe Monday, will hopefully be able to report an upswing in the blood counts.

Fighting boredom

One of the challenges of a long hospital stay is boredom, especially since they don’t let Sujata out of her confined space. The mornings typically go by fast with doctors’ visits, medical tests, night nurses leaving and the morning nurses coming in to say “hi”. When the hustle and bustle of the morning dies down, Sujata will often watch a few episodes of her favorite show on TV called “Law and Order”. She reads a little on her kindle when she has the energy,  and, in between short naps, will often logon to Facebook to pen her thoughts of the day, which some of you get to read. Every now and then, when she can muster the strength, she will walk over to the window and look out through a narrow opening between two tall buildings, to get a beautiful view of the tree tops of Central Park, or of the cars plying down below on Fifth Ave. I stood with her at the window yesterday and caught a little hint of Fall color on the tree tops. Fall has arrived a early this year, I think.

I have added a few more pictures to the October album on the left.