To Be or Not To Be?
There’s a chance I’ll still be in the hospital tomorrow—and some sort of chance I’ll be at home.
The doctors want to see how my body does with a growth stimulating hormone shot today, after my numbers did the predicted dip. (The blood samples taken this morning had white cells at 1.0 and neutrophils at 0.5.)
My consultant, the head doctor, said she thinks if my white-cell count (specifically the neutrophils I think) shows a move up with the shot, and if I’m still well, they may discharge me tomorrow. If my platelets have moved down from the 20 they were today (and were yesterday, which is itself kind of interesting), they’d give me a bag of platelets—what they called a “pool”—before being discharged.
I’d come back in on Friday to the “day ward” for blood tests and a review of how things are progressing; based on the results, they might give me platelets or a blood transfusion then. And again to the day ward early next week for the same set of tests.
Those will decide when in the next 7–10 days they decide to give me a bone marrow test to check the status inside. If the numbers don’t make the progress they want, they’ll do the bone marrow test earlier in the week; if they’re doing ok, they’d look to do it towards the end of the week.
Before all of that, if the count in the morning doesn’t go up even a bit, I’ll be here. Likewise, if the counts do it enough for me to be at home, developing a fever or starting to feeling sick will mean I have to come back.
So, don’t know what to expect yet. We’ll see. Really trying to restrain the hope since we’ve been burned before, expecting one thing and getting the opposite. Neither of us want to go through that again.
