Saturday

My team was just in....and they are pulling the stitches in my neck from where they inserted my central line! Yahoo!!! I can finally take a shower and not worry about that anymore. I'll have my central line for another year or so. My counts are great, per Dr. Larsen; kidney and liver studies are well within normal limits (which is excellent, even considering all the Grey Goose I drank previously). My white count has dropped to 1,000 -- believe it or not, they want it at zero to 100. That means I have absolutely NO immunity from any disease. Hence why I'm in protective precautions up here. But my hemoglobin is holding its own at around 10.2, and I haven't had any blood for a couple of days. That's totally different than getting two units of blood daily, so something seems to be leveling off.

Chemo side effects still not so bad, very tolerable. But they are very generous with medications, God bless them. My last bag of chemo goes up Sunday and then its 14 days of waiting to see what my bone marrow is going to do. Please pray that my marrow recovers and I go into remission. I'm still waiting for the genetics on my actual cancer, so I'm not sure if Dr. Larsen will tell me I need a transplant or the chemo route will be better.

I wish I could go outside and breathe some fresh air and feel the rain. I just love the air before/after it rains, it feels so fresh and new -- sorta like the earth regenerates somehow.

And to followup on the clothes Michael picked out for me...amazing! He did an excellent job of choosing very comfortable and bright stuff, just amazing. Jennifer and Michael came up with chips and salsa that I was craving, and gosh that tasted so good. I could actually taste the salsa! Sad how little things are so exciting to me now, but I have a feeling that this entire experience will create a new appreciation for a lot more things that I took for granted only two weeks ago.