August 15: They're Ready for Me To Go Home

My neutrophil count was 390 this morning. That gives me a decent shot at hitting 500 tomorrow.

Dr. Reddy wants to help me do that, however, though she gave credit for the decision on one of the residents (as a joke, I'm pretty sure). There's a shot called Neupogen that increases production from the bone marrow. Don told me they gave him a Neupogen shot to get stem cells into his blood stream so they could remove them for the transplant he got last week.

So I don't know if they need the room for another patient or whether they want to help me go home, but I should be released tomorrow if nothing goes wrong. Dr. Watson said he'd get my paperwork and prescriptions done today so that tomorrow, if my neutrophil count is over 500, they can just pull my PICC line and send me on my merry way.

The (Hopefully) Fun Stuff

I decided to sleep in this morning to see if extra sleep would get my blood production up. (That was before I was told that I was going to get a Neupogen shot.)

So first the janitor comes in, the young man I mentioned in an earlier blog, and an expression of shock crosses his face. I rolled over, saw him, and said, "I decided to sleep in today."

He said, "If you're still in bed, then anything could happen today. It could snow today!"

I guess I must have been up every time he's come in to clean the room. It was only about 7:30.

He immediately got buzzed to go to a meeting, so he didn't even stay to clean the room. I went back to sleep, and I didn't wake up until Hannah saw the doctors outside our door. (She was up.)

She woke me up, and I sat up in bed. She told me the doctors were outside the door. I glanced over, saw them, then turned back to her and said, "Is my hair okay?"

Is my hair okay?

Apparently, that caught her by surprise because she laughed for a while.

So, it's almost 11 a.m., and we're hanging out here. There was a lot of emails to answer, and this blog post to write. Hannah's answering emails, too. I did drop in on Don, who's doing a lot better, though he's hooked up to a very full IV pole. It even has an additional pump down at the bottom with a cord with a push-button switch on it. Whenever he wants, he can push the switch, and it will give him a shot of morphine. He's had some pretty bad intestinal cramps.

As I said, though, he's doing a lot better. I need to get back over there and see him soon.

I haven't seen Jerry this morning, either, but he's in the same state I am. He's just waiting for his immune system to grow back. He's mostly healed up from the pains, irritations, and exhaustions of the chemo, so it feels a lot like just hanging out.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!

And thanks again for all those prayers for people. If you're one of those praying people, you can not only pray for Don to get all the way better, but there's a couple—Mr. and Mrs. Darcy—that are in the middle of the chemo treatment. He's the sick one, and he's having pretty much the same issues I did, which I won't mention again here since I'm talking about someone else. It will be a week before his body gets the ability to heal itself, so pray for much grace for him. I know he'll be needing it.

Mrs. Darcy is a long-distance runner, so I see her on the exercise bike a lot. We can't do long-distance running in the hallway. Too much chance of laying out a sick patient attached to an IV pole, which would be ... well ... unfortunate.