Happy 4th of July weekend!

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.  – Warren Buffett

Hope you all are having a relaxing 4^th of July weekend.  I know we are.  I’m actually sort of on vacation right now because the doctor’s office I transcribe for is closed all next week.  Unfortunately, we can’t really go anywhere because I’m supposed to start my next regimen of chemo on Wednesday.  And the very last shuttle launch is scheduled for Friday, so we don’t want to miss that.  However, it will be really nice to have a relatively stress-free week without work hanging over my head. 

I just realized that I haven’t written in my blog for awhile, but I guess that’s because there really isn’t too much to report.  I’ve been feeling really good this week except for fatigue.  I did have another blood draw on Wednesday – had to wait an hour because the place was packed, and “my girl” was not there (she told me she’s only off on Mondays; where was she?!), so it took 2 sticks with the girl working that day.  I had warned her (as usual) that I was a tough draw, and she told me that she has a rule that she won’t stick unless she’s sure she’ll get blood.  Guess what?!  She stuck and got no blood!  So she went to the back of the hand and got a tiny bit – enough to run the tests, fortunately.  I’m beginning to sound like a broken record with my tortuous weekly blood draws.  Anyway, I picked up the results on Friday and was very distraught to see that my white count had dropped again – it was down to 2.98 (range 4.3 – 10).  Waaaahhhh!   Fortunately, I was feeling fine, but I was still a bit worried about it.  Knowing the long holiday weekend was coming up, I decided to call the onco office to see if I needed to be worried.  They said they don’t start worrying about neutropenia until the white count drops below 1.5.  So, if they weren’t worried, I was going to try not to worry.  I did talk to my good friend/chiropractor/clinical nutritionist, however, and he gave me some good advice on things to do to boost my immune system.  He always has good advice! 

I also picked up a copy of my hospital records last week.  The type of infection I had was never determined; I guess the antibiotics wiped it out before they could figure out what it was.  In addition to the unknown infection, I was noted to have neutropenia/leukopenia (low white count of 0.5), anemia (low red count of 8.4), thrombocytopenia (low platelet count of 26), and hypokalemia (low potassium of 3.0) – presumably caused by the chemo and/or the infection.  Those levels have since normalized (since I was transfused 2 units of packed red cells, 1 unit of platelets, and given IV potassium), except for the drop in the white count again. 

At any rate, I’m feeling good now.  I’m just hoping my low white count doesn’t postpone the next chemo regimen again.  Not that I’m looking forward to putting more poison into my body, but I AM looking forward to getting all this stuff behind me.  No more delays, please. 

Last night we walked down to the river here in the campground and had a great view of the Port St. John fireworks display.  It wasn’t one of the best displays we’ve ever seen, but it was quite good for a small town, and the best part was that we didn’t have to deal with any crowds or traffic! 

It’s time to go for a walk and maybe a swim.  Yesterday morning I did my 30-minute walk followed by 30 laps in the pool.  I’m going to try to keep that up this week.  The only pool deterrents are thunderstorms (every day last week) and/or lots of screaming kids.  I tried swimming laps one day when the pool was full of kids; it didn’t work out too well. 

Happy 4^th of July, everybody!  Enjoy the holiday weekend!