Day +3

Once again, it was a day much like the last several with no appetite and periods of weakness. I was told early on that Day +3 is when the patient often starts to feel worse because of chemotherapy effects and neutropenia. Either I started feeling worse over the weekend with the loss of appetite, or I haven’t started feeling worse yet. Either way, I consider it a victory. My primary oncologist, whom I haven’t seen much because he is not on rotation this month, stopped in today and when I said I had no appetite but didn’t really feel nauseated, he said that actually is a form of nausea. I’m trying to change my usage from “feeling nauseous” to “feeling nauseated” because strictly speaking, nauseous means causing nausea and I hope I’m not doing that.

I’ve been here 12 days now, and if all goes well, I could be out in 11 days, which would put me past the halfway point. Even if I’m not out in 11 days, it feels good to think about being possibly past the half way point for the hospitalization.

WBC .3
Hgb 8.7
Plt 29
ANC .1

For those of you paying attention to my counts (if any), you’ll notice my WBC and ANC have both dropped off noticeably. This is expected.

Your friend with the new bone marrow growing …