Today was interesting. I went in for my blood check and the guy drawing my blood put an IV line in and said, “yeah, you’ll probably need platelets today.” I said, “really? I thought my counts should be coming up by now.” And he proceeded to say that basically my blood was coming out really fast when he was drawing it and showed me how it spread out on this gauze pad. He said that, in his experience, these were signs of low platelets. Of course, it got me a little nervous but I tried to remain level-headed, though feeling a bit down going in to see the nurse. Well it turns out that my platelets basically skyrocketed to 110,000, up from the 30,000 point they had been hovering at for 2 weeks. I was thrilled! Unfortunately, my white counts were still dropping. They are down to 1.4 and I’m now neutropenic … again. I was really hoping I was going to make it through this time without going there, and was really shocked to see my counts still going down at week 5. It’s all normal and nothing to worry about. The crappy part is that Kieran has strep throat and a sinus infection and, while leaving the hospital I got a call from Ty’s school that he wasn’t feeling well. Now he is home with a stomach bug. They put me on an antibiotic to try to prevent me from getting any of these lovely things. I feel like I have only myself to blame because I was just saying to a friend the other day how great my kids’ immune systems were. I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that I was doomed.

Despite the low white count, I have been feeling really great. I actually went back to yoga last week and very successfully finished a hot yoga class. I was pretty nervous going into the class, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see what I was capable of doing and how much stamina I had. Being able to do it gave me further motivation to keep working. I can see that I am getting stronger. I really am starting to feel like me again.

I’m not going to let the white counts get me down this week, but I will try to be careful and avoid as many germs as possible. One of the things I was most grateful for this past week was that I was here to comfort Kieran while he was sick. He was so miserable over the weekend and just wanted to lay with mommy all day long. I kept thinking about what he would have to go through if I wasn’t here, but more importantly, how truly, truly grateful I am that I am here.

For anyone who’s paying attention to my dietary adjustments, I’ve been going 90% vegetarian and 70% vegan (these are estimates!) for about a month now. The vegetarian part is relatively easy for me, though I do find myself eating more carbs than I would like and probably more sugar as a result of being hungry. As much as I like beans and other proteins, I don’t always feel satisfied with just vegetables. I haven’t completely given into the idea of doing vegan yet. I really like cheese and I really like REAL ice cream. I tried non-dairy coconut milk ice cream this week, on the recommendation of a good friend, and it tastes good, but it’s not the real thing. I’ve decided to take things slowly, cutting out and replacing foods here and there rather than all at once. I also purchased a new vegetarian family cookbook and am scoping out my Moosewood cookbook for new ideas. It’s an adventure!