Step by Step....Headed into Spring

But will Spring every get here???  Seems like we get one or two nice days and then it is a cold and rainy again!!  I think it will be here soon....and with it I am amazed that we are approaching the 1 year mark with this ordeal.  And with no clear end in sight it gets even more important to just take it one day at a  time.


My energy has returned about 50% I would say.  Still not to the levels I felt in Jan/Feb, but much better than the beginning of the month.  What is weird is that my counts have done really well compared to where I was.  I haven't had platelets since Feb 22nd.  They made it to a high of 96 but have hovered in the 30's and 40's recently.  My blood transfusions are also stretching out, and my WBCs have touched 2.0 and are hovering around 1.8.  That is much better than the 0.3, 0.5. and 0.8's I have seen mostly since October.  It will be interesting to see what my counts are tomorrow, since I haven't been to clinic since Wednesday.


This weekend we took a trip from Thurs - Sun to Blacksburg.  I was nervous being so far away and gone from clinic for so long.  My HgB was 8.1 on Wed before I left.  Even though they transfuse me at 8.0 they didn't want to give me blood and wanted to see how I would do.  I was cleared for the trip but took it easy.  It was nice to drop by and see some of my VDOT co-workers and finally get the last of my junk out of the office.  In Blacksburg the kids visited with friends and we visited with a few friends as well.  It was very emotional for me to be back in the place that we really loved but only got to have for a year.  That "WHY WHY WHY" thing and a little bitterness definitely surfaced, but by the end of the weekend I found some peace again in not understanding but knowing the God has it in his hands.  We have been very blessed here in Chesapeake and never would have been able to get through the last year as well as we have had we not moved back home.


Tomorrow my sister is taking me up to Richmond for clinic and a biopsy.  I hope they get a good amount of material and can fully run all of the tests they need to.  I am tentatively scheduled to start my next run of chemo on April 9th and then a DLI after that.  This DLI is scheduled to be 4x greater than the last one - yikes!  Anyway, I have a doctor's appt set up on Friday.  I know they won't have all the results by then, but they will have some preliminary results and we can get the discussion started once again - delay chemo? stay on pace? super DLI? regular DLI?....there are four doctors, so I like to give them some time to all get together and discuss it.  I am sure the biopsy results and my blood counts will be big factors in the decision.


I better head off and get some rest.