Englishgirl in Indiana

Still in the hospital, still waiting for my counts to start coming back up, in particular the white counts and the neutrophils. The docs also started me on Neuprogen yesterday. Neuprogen is the bone marrow stimulant that is given on a daily basis. Neulasta is the two week stimulant which I reacted to quite spectacularly those few weeks ago and ended up in ER with a serious allergic reaction. Hopefully the Neuprogen won’t have the same effect - although I reacted about a week after the shots with some minor rashes. Needless to say I ended up with a temperature last night, sooo boring, but didn’t have any other symptoms other than the weird trapped nerve feeling I get with bone marrow stimulants. Very uncomfortable but nothing that some good pain meds can’t control. Anyway so of course with fevers and low white counts they are super reluctant to let me escape. They’ve pushed back the start date for my pre-BMT chemo so we’re probably looking at the latter part of next week rather than the beginning - again the doctors want to make sure that my counts are good, my organ functions are stable, etc, etc. Luc’s harvesting will still take place on the 15th and depending on whether I’m ready for transplant or not on that day, we may end up freezing his cells so they can be put in me at a later date. Still hoping for just a few days out of the hospital before the official admittance onto the BMT floor and I find myself stuck in here in isolation for the next many weeks.

Mentally and emotionally I’m doing okay, although yesterday I did have a little crying session when chatting with Bob (and then my phone totally died right in the middle of our interesting, thoughtful, repertoire - sorry Bob!). Needless to say I felt much better afterwards, nothing like a good cry for an effective cathartic experience. Today I then felt much more with it and able to deal with the doctors. While obviously the emotional side of this whole experience has been underlying I find trying to deal with it with too much emotion utterly exhausting. I’d rather put my energy into getting well, focusing on the fun things I have to do for the upcoming semesters, even just reading, just enjoying life around me, however confined to four, white walls. Besides being British does provide me with a certain amount of stoicism that I actually find huge comfort in. I love knowing I can have a good cry every now and then but that ultimately I can rely on common sense and inner strength. I think that’s what brings me calmness in all of this; the key of course is finding the balance and making sure that every now and then I do have a good cry and get out the innate frustrations.

Luc has been working hard this week, enjoying the ease of wireless technology outside and here’s a pic of me and the bro - it’s a bit grainy unfortunately but I’ll try and get that fixed.

Filed under: bone marrow disorder, cancer, T-cell Lymphoma on July 4th, 2008