Still in hospital ...

It's been a while since I last posted, and I'm still in hospital! I (or my white blood cells) have finally turned the corner, and I should be going home this weekend. Which will be about 4 weeks since I came in!!!

It's all been another one of those assumptions that because this is how it worked the last three times, then this is how it will always happen. Not!! In this case, that my white blood cells would fully recover a week after they 'crashed'. However, this time it took 2 weeks before they even showed up on the radar of blood tests!!

And in that 2 weeks I ran a temperature pretty much every day! Blood cultures were being taken every other day. I was being seen by an Infectious Diseases specialist who ended up telling me that despite all his tests, the temperatures/fevers would probably only be fixed when my white blood cell count came up. At which point he'd take the credit!! (We both laughed!!)

Add in some other unpleasant side effects of chemo that I'm not going to discuss in 'polite company' (!) and I really felt like I was 'paying' for crowing about how I wasn't having any side effects to speak of earlier!! I know it doesn't work like that, but this time has certainly been much harder than the previous three.

However, I've been so happy since yesterday morning when my blood counts started moving up! Which of course meant all the other side effects started getting better etc. Really shows you where you'd be without them! (Up sh*t creek without a paddle!!)

They're still hoping to do the stem cell recovery procedure, but it depends on whether enough stem cells show up. Apparently because of the length of time this has all taken, it just may not be possible, in which case we'd go for it next time I expect. There weren't enough today - I think a decision may be made tomorrow on that ...

I'll post again from home ... :)