Day–2 You should know I bleed blue, but I’m not a crip though

I can’t even tell you the difficulty I had on day –2, so I’m not going to dwell on it.   Let’s just say that when they were putting the ports in my chest and in my left arm, I had real actual thought of escaping and running away.  Had the nurse not buckled me down on the table, who knows what would’ve happened.

I’ve always prided myself on remaining even keeled in stressful situations (baseball games aside), but I guess when you’re in a situation like this, all normal rules go right out the window.

So, just to recap yesterday, I had the ports put in my chest and my last dose of major chemo.  I had still not slept at all to this point and was cranky and just unpleasant in general.

So that brings us today.  Again, the previous night was filled with endless tossing and turning.  If I got 2 hours of sleep, that would’ve been a lot.  So what happened at 6:00am this morning?  I was dragged off for my first dose of radiation.

Through three three skybridges on an uncomfortable stretcher and back to the bowels of the Perelman Center where this all started.  My mom was placed in a waiting room and was taking to this huge chamber with something that looked like a huge space aged boiler in it.  I was asked if I had my own music or if I wanted to listen to the communal IPOD.  Of course, I have all apple products, but since I didn’t have my phone with me, I figured it a necessary evil.  I was then placed in fetal position, the music came on and then a loud buzzing started.  I didn’t really feel anything but a slight warmth, but I was in mental agony as the ipod mix seemed to loop between Lady GaGa songs and Cyndi Lauper.  I honestly don’t know what was worse, the radiation or the music.

About half and hour later I was done.  Between the gross fatigue, the proton therapy, and the shitty music, I was both tired, miserable and mostly incoherent.  I don’t think I had ever felt a bought of nausea that was that bad.  I held it, though as we were being escorted back to my room.

When we got there, the nurse informed us that I was to lay in the family lounge as the scrub my room from top to bottom.  In a few hours, I would be in full isolation.  Lockdown.  Solitary confinement.  Room 7014 would be my prison for the next 4-6 weeks.

As soon as I got to the lounge, I couldn’t hold it anymore.  I yacked like I haven’t yacked since I first started drinking alcohol.  It was an unpleasant mixture of unidentifiable food byproducts, bile, and god knows what else.  It was terrible and the taste lingered in my mouth forever.  And as has become customary, I passed out immediately afterward.

I slept and slept and slept until it was time again to go for radiation at 6:00pm.  This time I was armed with my Incredible.  The 2nd time around was not as bad, with my music playing and with me falling in and out of sleep, it was nice.

I can back to the room, sans terrible nausea (yay!) and was awaited by my wonderful sister, mother, and two family friends (well, Chumki Mashi I guess is more of an acquaintance).  We got everything in the room situated (including me) and I guess this is the go.  We are T –2 days to the transplant and all systems are go.

Here goes nothing.

 

 

And as always, if this talk of vomiting and general whining has brought you down… Here’s a little pick me up courtesy of my man Steve (I Apologize for it being sideways)

Day–4: You’re Barely Waking and I’m Tangled in You

The morning was difficult.  Sleeping in that cold, uncomfortable hospital bed all alone with no one is hard enough.  What I did instead was just toss and turn all night with my brain going haywire.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt this anxious in my entire life.  On and off, I think I got maybe 2 hours of sleep.

7 AM rolls around and there are two transports actually fighting over me.  Myself, I was rooting for the X-Ray lady but unfortunately, the IR transport person won.  I knew what that meant.  It was time to put in my ports.  The pic line and the hickman line.  My anxiety reached a fever pitch.

We got down to the procedure area, the doctor came out and I signed the consent forms and one of the nurses strapped my arm down straight out so that they can PIC line in.  I shit you not, I actually started fantasizing about trying to escape and getting out of there.  I’ve never had a panic attack before, but this was definitely as close to one as I have ever gotten.  Luckily they pumped me full of some anti anxiety meds and a sedative and I was out. 

Unfotunately, I woke up just as they placed the last part of the hickman line in my chest as they buried it.  Needless to say, it didn’t tickle.  Thankfully I’m whisked back to my room pretty expediently.  As wonderful as the people are in nthis hospital, it seems like you have to wait forever for EVERYTHING here, but I guess I got lucky.

I get back to my room and lucky for me, my mom was already there.  Unfortunately for my mom, I was miserable and couldn’t sleep.  I basically took little naps for the majority of the day until it was time for the big one.  The point of no return.  That whole shabang.  Everything that had been done to this point could be reversed, but now the nurse brought it what looked like to be a 300 lb bag of liquid chemo therapy to be hung from my pole (tehe.. Hung from my pole).  Once that starts, there’s no turning back.  Cells will be destroyed and I will never be the same on a molecular level.  So here goes nothing…

…  And funny enough it felt  a lot like nothing.  It was that huge bag of chemo and then several other bags of complementary drugs to manage side effects and what not , but afterwards aside from the fatigue, I really didn’t feel any averse affects.  I guess I was lucky.  The nurse did tell me that some people don’t feel anything until the 2nd day of chemo starts.

Later that evening, my sister came by and brought with her something that will insure that I will love her forever…  KFC.  Oh man, I scarfed that down like it was my last meal.  The Colonel was quite the life saver.  I was willing to enlist in his army after that.

Some more time past and at about 5:30, my friend Sue had come to visit.  I have not seen Sue in a very long time and while I would’ve rather had them under other circumstances, I was glad to be seeing her.  We spent a few hours hanging out, catching up, coloring, and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (don’t dudge me!).

After she left, I cleaned up my night on various Skype dates and finally trying to go to sleep.

 

Here’s something less morbid

Day –5: So You Lost Your Trust and You Never Should Have… You Never Should Have

 

Day –6 (Saturday 2/6/11) was an open invite to the people in my life to spend some time with me and give me one last gasp of normalcy before I’m committed to the clink for the next several weeks.  The outpouring of goodwill from people was absolutely amazing!  I was a little nervous at first since the invitation extended from 9:00am and no one had showed up around 11:00.  I was getting a little sad when my phone rang with a specific ringtone.  Why was my phone playing Don’t Stop Believin?  It was my boss calling!  I couldn’t believe it.  Brian had drove all the way up from wherever his mansion is in south central Jersey and came to slum with us plebeians to see his loyal servant off.  I can’t tell you how great that felt.  How many people have a boss that drive that far just to spend some time with an employee that hasn’t been to work in 2 months?!?

For then on it was wave after wave of friends that came in to spend time.  Some family friends showed up.  It was absolutely fantastic.  The best part?  It felt normal.  When my friends Dirty and Mike (who came with his wonderful mother) show up, we sat around and BSed just like we did at work.  Nobody bothered to ask too many questions about the procedure happening on Day 0, they were too busy thinking about who’s going to win the Super Bowl and whether or not Ronnie and Sammy were REALLY going to break up this time (Anita thinks they’re done…. What a fool). 

While we were discussing the intellectual merits of GTL, my sister showed up with her kids and then the real fun started.  Between teasing Ella and chasing Cameron, I felt so good (and so tired) by 4.  But the kids weren’t even the best part.  Not by a long shot.  As most of you know, my choice of food is going to be severely restricted so my sister/BIL were kind enough to bring these most delicious crab cakes in so that we could share them for dinner.  The kids were wonderfully exhausting and the crab cakes were sensational.

As if that wasn’t enough, around eight and nine respectively, The Georges and the Figurellis showed up and this was the breath of normalcy that I needed.  Since we’d already been through the melodrama of explaining everything going on and we just got to hang out.  It was just sitting around bullshitting and it was everything I wanted it to be.  By the end of the night, we just watched TV and hung out.  Nothing grand.  Just a set of friends hanging out.  It was exactly what I needed.

Some of our family friends came over as well and it was good.  The whole day was perfect.  Filled with friends, family, and great food.  The day was more than I could’ve asked for.

PS – I got the best gift from Chrissy!  But unfortunately you can’t know what it is unless you come and visit me here at the hospital!  }o-)

---

Day –5 (2/6/11) aka Super Bowl Sunday was filled with some good old clean family fun and hectic-ness.  I was woken up in the morning with some delicious McDonald’s breakfast while Anita was woken up by two children jumping on top of her.  We spent the next few hours finishing packing.  I kept myself busy picking out DVDs to take with me.

I was called by the hospital at around 11:00 to confirm that I was going through with the admission to the hospital that evening.  I asked what time it would be and she said that the Rhoads Pavilion was expecting my bed to be ready by 8:00.  They were really expecting me to miss the Super Bowl to check into the hospital.  It’s like they don’t’ know me at all.

We went down to my sister’s house so that we could be close by when we got the call.  We were all watching the Super Bowl/getting everything ready when my phone rings and of course… my bed is ready @ 7:00.  I turned around immediately and asked her if I can get there between 9:30 and 10:00.  Of course, we get there @ 10:30 after we stopped by at McDonald’ s for my last double cheeseburger for many months.  We whizzed up to the Rhoads Pavilion and boom. 

Our Journey begins.

Day –6: And We All Shine On… Like the Moon, and the Stars, and the Sun

I am exactly 6 days away from my transplant this morning and I'm officially freaked out.  On 2/3 I attended a bone marrow transplant class along with my brother-in-law at the Perelman Center where I used to get my infusions and the information was too much to take.  The nurse practitioner tried to keep everything as light and tried to be as supportive as possible, but the elephant in the room was still there.  This is going to be the most difficult undertaking of my life. 

My sister, mother, and pre-wife had already gone to the class 2 weeks prior (I was supposed to attend as well, but I was in the hospital as a patient and couldn’t be around other people) so I already had much of the information, but sitting through it myself and receiving a big binder with my name on it with everything that’s going to change was a bit much.  I don’t know how to process this.  I can’t seem to wrap my head around it, laugh about it, and move on.  I’m freaked out. 

Once piece of new information that I found out at the class was that I will be forbidden to drink alcohol for an entire year from day 0!  WTF?!?  I almost threw in the towel and told her that I think I’ll take my chances with this whole Myelofibrosis thing.  Not that drinking is this huge part of my life, but this is kind of a big year.  This means that wedding – no alcohol.  Can you imagine that?  Having to shake the hands of those people that I really don’t know and pretend to care about them and smile and to it completely sober?  Vegas is looking pretty good to me right now.  Never mind the wedding.  The bachelor party!  No alcohol.  No alcohol at my bachelor party.  I don’t even know how to elaborate on that point.  Our honeymoon – not a drop to drink.  We haven’t even chosen where our honeymoon is going to be, but I’m pretty sure that I want to drink on it!  }o-/

So in response to this new information, I figured I would just spend these last few days absolutely blasted.  Wrong.  What I failed to realize was that I’m too anemic to drink and enjoy it.  I’ve been taking shots of a drug called Neupogen over the past two weeks to keep me healthy.  The way it works is that it forces my bone marrow to contract and expand in order to create more blood cells than it would normally create.  Of course, since the process is forced and is unnatural it is also somewhat unregulated.  When the marrow expands, it doesn’t stop until it hits the walls of my bone; not the most pleasant experience.  Anyway, I was under the assumption that the drug forced my marrow to create ALL TYPES of blood cells, but that’s apparently not the case.  It only creates white blood cells and by the way I’ve been feeling over the last few days, my red blood cell/hemoglobin count has dropped to below 8 (the threshold for me to get a transfusion).  You would think that having a few drinks while you’re anemic would make you feel drunker than you’re supposed to and for some it might, but unfortunately for me, I just feel sick, get a headache, and come home and throw up like a high school kid going to his first keg party.  So to recap – I’ve spent the last 2 nights eating out, Thursday night I drank a lot, Friday night I only had a little.  Both nights I came home and yacked like some rookie.

Anyway, today is my last day of freedom.  I’ve asked people to come over for one last visit and I’m looking forward to it.  I’m basically going to leave the door open here and let people come in as they please and spend as much time as they want.  It will be really great to spend some time with my loved ones one last time before I’m normal.  My friend Chrissy said that she has some sort of surprise for me and I’m looking forward to that, obviously.  I’m also looking forward to the many Skype dates I plan on having over the coming weeks.  Today is also the last day that I can eat food from outside the home.  I’m thinking a nice dose of McDonald’s and other crap will definitely be in order.

For now, since this post was a little morbid and I want to leave on a happy note, I leave you with this amazing article:

Click here to laugh and smile

 

Thank you for your support and kindness, everyone!

I’ve Got Another Confession to Make… I’m Your Fool

 

 

 

My sister has started a blog of her own on carepages.com to keep people updated with what's going with the transplant.  You have to sign up for a membership on carepages.com, but it's free.  If you're interested in what's going on and would like to be updated, please follow

http://www.carepages.com/carepages/PaulashsTransplantUpdates

I'm going to try and update on here as often as possible, too.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what my motivation level is going to be once I’ve gone through the entire process.  For all I know, I may be spending an entire month @ UPENN watching Star Wars on an endless loop (which actually doesn’t sound that bad to me).

Anyway, if you are interested, please sign up and check both places.   I will do the best I can to keep people abreast of what’s going down, but I know my sister will do a better job because she’s awesome like that.

 

Thank you!

A Selfish Plea to my Tweeps

The following is going to be a selfish plea to anyone out there listening. I apologize in advance for being so and assure you that I am not normally this selfish. Not always, at least. }-)

As most of you know, I have a pretty serious illness. It's called Myelofibrosis; it attacks the marrow inside my bones and turns them into useless fibers. It's the marrow that creates all your blood cells that your body needs to transport oxygen, fight off illness, and clot and close wounds. As more marrow is turned into fiber, my body is less able to replenish what it needs to carry on and I'm forced to received blood transfusions and take injections to force the remaining marrow to work overtime. Eventually, my marrow will fail completely and then... well... Not so nice things happen.

I am very lucky, however. While I have been afflicted by this disease (by the doctors' estimation) since I was about five and there is no known easy cure, there is a way out. A complete bone marrow transplant will cure me and I'm scheduled to have one in February @ the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. For those of you that don't know what's involved in a complete bone marrow transplant, I'm going to be completely irradiated and have strong chemo (bye, bye hair! My one good feature!). They then trasnplant stem cells into me with a blood transfusion and voilah! It's a whole new me! Literally. Many things might change. In fact, I was in the waiting room one day talking to someone who had a successful transplant of his OWN stem cells and he said that before the transplant, he could not stand chocolate ice cream. After the transplant, it's all he will eat! How odd, no? Well, when I saw Dr. Stadtmauer later that evening, I told him, "Listen Dr. If I come out of this thing a Phillies fan (he's a huge fan), you and I are going to have WORDS." Hahaha. For those of you that don't know, I'm a huge yankees fan. Enormous. I live and die with the pinstripes.

But I digress. Since the radiation/chemo cocktail is basically going to destroy any shred of any immunity that I've ever developed, I will be spending the next 4-5 weeks hospitalized simply rebuilding every immunity I've ever had since birth. Sounds like fun, right? I guess we'll see.

This story is getting long and I apologize. I'm going to try and cut to the chase here.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the hospital starting in February. Hell, I already spend a lot of time at the hospital. I had a birthday party last Saturday and was going to use any money I received to buy a new laptop to keep me connected to the outside world while I was in the joint. Unfortunately, due to issues I've been trying to resolve for a while, my paycheck from my job (I still get paid thanks to great short term disability coverage offered through my awesome employer... and THEY pay for it!) has been suspended and the money that I received will more than likely have to go to bills and other things to keep things running.

And this is where my selfish plee comes in. I'm asking for donations to "Paulash's laptop fund". I know it's completely materialistic and I'm half embarassed to even be asking this, but I'm going to be cut off from the world. I thought I would be able to buy a nice modest laptop and be able to Skype with my loved ones or stream Netflix or watch other movies or just to keep myself entertained. I'm even going to be spending some time in isolation because for a while, I'm going to have zero immunity and under heavy medical scrutiny.

I know I'm being selfish. I know times are tough for everyone. I know there are bigger things in this world that could use better attention. But if you can, and you would like to donate absolutely anything, I would be much much obliged. Thank you!

My Cock is Cleaner Than Your Bum

I had to take the day off from work today.  I wasn’t feeling very well and wasn’t really able to sleep last night and just needed a day to get my shit together. 

Of course, that afforded me the time to watch TV (after doing my laundry).  So,  I watched With Honors again today.  My god, I love that movie.  Right now, I’m willing to go as far as to say that it’s my second favorite movie of all time (behind "Contact”… Don’t ask.. I’m a weirdo).  Of course, being the enormous sap I am, I cried like a baby at the end when Monty reads Simon’s obituary.

I absolutely love stories of redemption.  Redemption is what makes humanity so great.  Redemption is what makes being human worthwhile.  In 99% of cases on Earth, no matter what ill-advised decision you’ve made, there’s always a chance of at least SOME redemption.

We are the Change that We’ve Been Looking For

 

I can’t begin to tell you how I’ve felt the last few days after the healthcare bill passed.  It wasn’t nearly as liberal and as comprehensive as I would’ve liked, but it’s a step in the right direction.  I understand democracy is slow and that legislation is even slower, but what a day to be an American.  What a win for the American people.

You are Pulled From The Wreckage.. Of Your Silent Reverie

The last few days to what now that I think of it-over a week has been… odd for me.  From just before I went to PA to see some venues with Anita (and go to James’ house party).  I just haven’t felt right.  I thought that it was my body coming down with something.  I thought I was getting a cold.  I actually thought it was kinda funny that at the end of all this, I’d be getting a cold right before getting to work.  But now that I’ve spent the last two days REALLY thinking about (and being a little reclusive… which is a little easier when you’ve got snow snow snow snowtorious going on outside), it’s not a little cold.  It’s something so much more than that.

In my idle time sitting here on the couch I spend so much time just thinking (and playing Madden).  I think about all sorts of stuff.  My life, my job, my friends… My love.  Yesterday, I had a conversation with my mom about me possibly becoming an atheist.  It hurt her and it hurt me to see her hurt by it, but it was something that I had just been thinking about.  She told me that she couldn’t believe that those words could pass my lips after everything I had just been through.  And I could see it on her face.  She spent so much time pleading with God to spare me what could’ve been my demise (by last count) three times over.  The fact that we heard the news that the Myleran was working on her birthday was some sort of sign to her.  A rebirth of sorts.  An end to the 30 year war my body had been waging on itself.

And then, as it tends to do, my mind went on a tangent.  Why?  Why all of a sudden was I due for this miracle?  A drug that is rarely used for anything is basically saving my life?  A mild chemotherapy pill no wider than the circumference of the tip of my pinky was going to make me last?  For what?  Does it mean anything?  Does any of this mean anything?  Was it just dumb luck?  That 1 in 50 shot when the hail mary is actually CAUGHT by the wide receiver in the end zone to win the game?

And then, as I tend to do, I thought about Anita.  She’s the only one here that has no vested interest in this at all.  She’s the one that should’ve run for the hills at the first sign of blood.  She’s the one that isn’t obligated by any ties of family or long standing friendship to be by my side for any of this.  But that’s right where she was.  She couldn’t be there for me (physically) as much my sister, and she didn’t get as emotional about everything as my mother (very few people do), but in her own Anita way, she was there for me.

The last two days have been exceptionally difficult for me emotionally.  I was so confused as to what I was feeling exactly.  My eyes welled up for no reason at times, I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone, I listed to all sorts of sad songs, and missed my friends.  I attributed it to the snowmageddon going outside.  Crappy weather… Sad feelings.. It happens, right?  Well, it finally hit me tonight while Anita and I were discussing what our plans were for Valentine’s Day.  I miss her.  I mean, I miss her all the time, but right now, I really miss her.  I’ve been obsessing over her curly hair and some of the faces she makes and some of the weird things we say to each other that make us US, and I just… miss her… but I digress. 

We were talking about our plans and I started fantasizing about living together and all that stuff and how often she would need a night out with her friends to deal with the fact that… Well…  She’d be living with me…  It’s not going to be easy…  I mean… I have bad morning breath, I am messy, and I never wear pants at home… And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  And then I thought about the future and yadda yadda yadda… sappy sappy sappy… 

And that’s when everything came together.  An epiphany.  I felt that maybe there was a God; maybe there WAS a rhyme AND a reason to all of this.  Everything that I’ve been through over the last few months.  I can’t tell you what it’s like to think that “Oh my God, there’s a chance I might die”.  It’s scarier than you can possibly imagine.  But for what?  Maybe God WANTED me to go through all this.  Maybe the fact that I fell ill IMMEDIATELY after proposing to Anita wasn’t a coincidence, but a sign.  I’ve been dealing with this blood shit since I was five damn years old.  I can’t even count how many different doctors I’ve seen to try and figure out what wrong.  I don’t even remember half the procedures I’ve had to go through to identify what exactly was the ticking time bomb behind all my ailments.  So why now, right?  Maybe I needed to get through all this to purge my body of it.  Maybe even a test for Anita; a test of her commitment and resolve and LOVE for someone that might not be there forever.  So many times I’ve come to the brink with this thing over the last 25 years and now, as I’ve found my wife, the person I want to spend the rest of my life with; maybe God found it necessary or thought it was time that this battle should end with me (and us) the victor.  To essentially end that chapter of my life so that I can officially move on to the next one without having to worry about what lurks around the corner or when the next landmine will get stepped on.

That feeling I couldn’t identify for the last two days?  I needed to cry.  That’s what it was.  I know it’s weird to have a man say that, but it’s true.  I needed to cry.  I put on a movie that I haven’t seen since I was about 17 years old and I really let it out and it felt 100% cathartic.  This thing with Anita.  I can honestly say that I’ve never felt this way before.  EVER.  And we’re SO different.  And sure, there are times that she pisses me off and probably double that (at least) for the amount of times that I’ve pissed her off, but in the end, I never want to wake up next to anyone else. 

If this is the case, and this is the endgame then it was all more than worth it.  The fear, the overwhelming and consuming fear of not knowing whether or not if the sun will set for me soon was worth it.  If this was the rain and the rest of my life with Anita is the rainbow; I would’ve gone through double what I went through (not that I’m volunteering.. yikes).  Anita, me, her family, my family, OUR family… Nothing less than a gift from God.  Living mostly happily ever after.  I couldn’t think of a better ending.

My Life, My Story, Myelofibrosis, err.. Myleran??

How did Mr. Womp Womp Wooomp Downer turn back into his happy self?  What caused this transformation?  Well, it was a lot of hard work (and trial and error) and the expertise of Dr. Stadtmauer of The Hospital of UPENN.  I could not recommend him MORE to anyone having ANY hematological disorders.  When you see him, you are going to wait a long time before he actually comes to the examination room, but I’m telling you, he’s more than worth the wait.  He’s knowledgeable, personable, and a perfect mix of seriousness/humor for people dealing with really difficult health issues.  His team is just as impeccable at HUP.  I’ve seen an umpteenth number of his colleagues in my many stays at HUP and they’ve all just been fantastic.

Now, I know this sounds like I’m talking as though I’m cured.  I know that my battle is not nearly over and that there may be times ahead, but for right now I am going to enjoy the fact that I am healthy and am able to reasonably enjoy my life again for the first time in about 8 months.  And the best part about this news?  It took three weeks to get here.  Only three effing weeks to turn it all around.

So, after the last battle right before Christmas, Dr. Stadtmauer’s “hail mary” was something called Myleran.  The medication is really supposed to be used for cancer patients, but Dr. Stadtmauer was interested in the drug’s ability to suppress the bone marrow from creating cells.  Everything else we had tried to do this either had a negligible effect or may have contributed to my blood clotting even more. 

At last check, my blood counts were extremely out of whack.  My hemoglobin count was fluctuating between 6.5 (at its worst) and 9.1 (immediately after blood transfusions – a normal hemoglobin count is between 14-18 gm/dl).  My platelet count, which has caused the most damage to my life with all the clotting) has been astronomically high.  Before the new year and before starting on the Myleran, it was hovering around 1.2M (a normal count is between 150K – 400K / microliter.. yep.. About THREE TIMES the MAXIMUM safe amount).  These are numbers I have been familiar with for a while.  The HGB was not seen double digits since around 2007 and the platelet count shot through the roof following my splenectomy.  Alongside Myleran, I switched blood thinners.  Either the Warfarin I was taking failed or my body was getting used to it or something because I had the blood in the lung episode while on Warfarin.  A new drug called Fragmin would become my new friend.  The benefit:  Fragmin doesn’t really need to be managed.  I just take it and that’s it.  Oh!  Another incredible amazing wonderful minor benefit of Fragmin is that it is not metabolized in the liver, SO I CAN FINALLY DRINK ALCOHOL AGAIN!  Ahem.  Which is good.

Anyway, after being on Myleran for two weeks (on my birthday) my blood counts returned at a 9.6 for the hemoglobin (I had a transfusion the preceding week) and miraculously, my hemoglobin returned at 874K.  It had fallen 400K in a little more than 2 weeks!  It was absolutely nuts.  I wanted to jump out of my skin with joy when I heard this.  It was the 2nd best birthday present I could’ve gotten behind the PS3 my sister got me.

Again on the 25th, I had another appointment with the good doctor to check the progress again.  This time, the results were even more unbelievable.  My hemoglobin at 11.1 and platelet 504K!  Dr. Stadtmauer even took the time to pat himself on the back.  Ha.

Tomorrow, I have another appointment here locally in NJ with my backup hematologist to see where my counts are and for the first time in months, I’m actually looking FORWARD to it to assess my progress instead of being mortified to find out how far I’ve regressed.  I wonder if Dr. Kumar (the local hematologist) is going to be amazed when he sees my CBC numbers.  How exciting!

As always, thank you to everyone who supported me through all this crap.  I’d like to give a special thank you to my very good Tom.  When I spent some time with him this weekend, he stumbled over to me and said, “Hey, listen.  I’m really glad you’re feeling so much better.  I was really worried about you.  I just wanted you to know that.  I wouldn’t be able to tell you this if I was sober.”  Made me laugh and brought a little tear to my eye.

Here goes nothing.