Well it hasn’t been the best couple of days. I am at the very bottom with my counts (0.1!) and I am dealing with a lot of zero-white cell issues. The biggest issue is my sore throat. It makes it very hard to swallow so they have changed all of my medications to IV and my diet is pretty limited to mush and Ensures. As usual we tried Dilaudid for the pain in the throat and my head followed by the nausea medication that knocks and me out and there goes Jessica for all of Saturday. By the evening we were able to work out a system that wasn’t completely knocking me out or giving me nausea but comfortably taking away the pain.

There was actually good news yesterday too. The doctor who will be my doctor when I leave the hospital is on rounds right now, so I got to meet him finally and, as several people had told me, he is awesome. He is incredibly thorough and clearly has a strong sense of what works and what doesn’t. After examining me, he immediately put me on two new antibiotics to assure that my throat issue doesn’t turn into any kind of infection, he lowered my dose of the immune suppressing drug that is giving me headaches and he had them start me on neupogen. That is the injection that I get in the stomach that boosts my immune production. On my chart I was supposed to start it on Thursday, but the doctor that was on call at the time decided that I didn’t need it – who knows why? Dr. Yanovich, my doctor now, basically rolled his eyes and implied it should have been started. I don’t think he was happy about some of the decisions that have been made for me along the way. I’m not dwelling on any of that now, I am just grateful that he has taken over my care. So I’m on the neupogen shots now and in the next day or so my counts should start to come up. Despite my low white count, my platelets have held really well after the transfusion and all of my other counts are still within acceptable ranges. My red count is at the low end of the spectrum and that is contributing to some of the fatigue.

I woke up feeling better this morning and thought I would get up and go for a walk but then fell back asleep until almost 11. During that time, they started me on a steroid that the doctor thought would help with the nauseu. Well I woke up and felt 100% normal again. No headaches, no fatigue, no dizziness – I felt awesome. Apparently that is the effect of the steroid. I’ll gladly take a good side effect for a change!

My friend Kim, from Ulman Fund, came to visit today and brought along a Team Fight member who is another young adult cancer survivor. She had been diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma when she as 8 months pregnant with her first child! She had the baby and immediately started 7 months of chemo and then radiation. She is in remission now and went on to have a second child even though they told her it might not be possible. It was very inspirational to meet her. This is never the kind of club I wanted to be part of, but Ulman Fund has done incredible things to bring young adult cancer survivors together in a way that keeps all of us feeling strong and inspired.

Okay, so now for some sad news – my hair started falling out I’m not shaving my head or cutting anything yet. I’m still remaining hopeful that it might just thin a little. It’s not the worst thing ever, I was just really hoping that I wouldn’t have to go through this part of it again. Let’s all just keep our fingers-crossed and focus some good healing vibes on my hair

Of course my hair is just a little thing in this big picture. Most important is my health and healing and right now the doctors are very happy with how things are going. My new doctor as well as several other doctors and nurses have said that if things stay on course, I will be home for Christmas! Hair or no hair, if I can get home for Christmas I will literally be the happiest girl in the world. I just want to be able to give that as a gift to my children more than anything.

In other news I am making some progress on one of my books and I finished all of my Christmas cards. So all in all, I have managed to be productive somehow.

Latest food craving: croissants … and I don’t know why.