Day +12 - I'M HOME!

I’M HOME!!! It’s amazing how good it feels to be at home and not at the hospital. It’s actually been very emotional for me. I’ve wept several times today just from the relief of being at home. Part of that might be that some part of me remembered that one of the possibilities was that I would never make it home from the hospital. I didn’t think about that at a conscious level much at all because I always felt like I would get home, but I’m sure there was a part of me that knew it didn’t have to be that way. Being outside, moving around, eating foods that were actually appealing, sitting on the porch, etc. all felt soooo good. And I’m so much more comfortable here, that I’m sure it will speed my recovery to feeling more normal.

Driving home from the hospital at around noon today, including stopping to get a truckload of drugs at the pharmacy (which took a while), I realized that I was in no hurry. It was a nice day and I had nothing I had to get to. I also realized that for the next 3 or 6 or 12 months, I’m not really going anywhere. Besides doctor’s appointments, there’s nowhere I have to be and it is an amazingly different perspective on my “busy” life. IOW, in my “normal” life, I’m “busy” and often have “somewhere I have to be”. But because I’m sick and can’t do all those things without risking my life, I can take maybe a year off from all that.

Last night at 10:00, my temperature was 100.1°. The nurse said, “Uh oh. If you spike a fever, you won’t be going home tomorrow.” I was a little worried, of course, but was also pretty sure it would go down without spiking, because I didn’t feel very bad and it was sort of a pattern I had seen before. At 11:00, it was at about 99.8°, and when she checked again at about midnight, it was about 99.6°. Then in the morning it was down even more, so my suspicion was borne out.

I have about 10 prescriptions that I take 2 or 3 times a day each. I also take an antibiotic intravenously (through my catheter) which I was shown how to do myself here at home by a nurse who came this evening. It’s interesting, the medicine comes in a ball that contains its own pump in that there’s a spring that keeps the liquid under pressure. It also doesn’t require any help from gravity so I can carry the ball around in my pocket.

My platelet count was up satisfyingly today. It’s definitely being created by my new marrow. My hemoglobin is up primarily because of the transfusion I got yesterday. There will not be daily counts now for a while because I’ll only be having them taken once a week or so unless I wind up back in the hospital for some reason. Also to follow up on yesterday’s normal blood count ranges, I have a sheet here that indicates that for me, normal WBC is 4 – 11, normal Hgb is 14 – 18, and normal Plt is 150 – 400.

WBC 3.3
Hgb 9.8
Plt 38
ANC

BTW, I’ve just corrected yesterday’s blog to add a “not” that I left out about feeling worse by 6:30 PM.

Loving being at home …