2 Weekaversary

Today marks two weeks since I was admitted and it is all pretty good news. Blood tests taken this morning show a neutrophil count of 0.52, up from 0.05 yesterday, which is apparently a steep rise. This is the level at which they start to consider letting you go home. The only thing is one of the tests they did for viruses following my spiky temperature the other day came back positive so I start a new course of antibiotics today. However, providing my bloods stay ok over the weekend and the neutrophils continue to rise I will be having 'discharge talks' on Monday! This means I might be home as early as Friday...only joking it could well be Tuesday I am home. Which is great.

The nurse told me the pattern I have followed during the transplant is text book, and it would appear that my body has (once again) done well in coping with incredibly high doses of nasty drugs. Blood tests show my liver and kidney function to be normal, and if how I feel is anything to go by I feel fine too. I have been warned not to get too complacent about how I feel in here because you do nothing. I don't walk anywhere, my food is brought to me, there are no stairs, etc. When you leave apparently it will be harder for me for a bit physically (because of inactivity) and mentally. Apparently you get something known as 'chemo-brain' where you're not good at coping with multiple stimuli, the example given was kids shouting, telly on and trying to do something at the same time (that's like 14 hours of my normal day). If struggling you need to remove yourself for 'a couple of hours' and gradually reintroduce yourself to the situation. I'll run that one past Jo and see what she thinks.

Decided to go nuclear on the hair, even at grade 4 I was leaving visible little piles of hair around my feet where I sat and it was looking all thin and patchy. So it is now 0.5. Check it.

It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would. I wouldn't choose it but it is ok. Apparently there is a 7 day period of hair loss. My beard pretty much all fell out this morning. At first it was only the left half of my goatee which made me look well stupid so I had to persevere and pull out more of the right side to even it up. I will shave it tomorrow. As for my hair I can see bald patches now, some the size of a pea. nothing massive, however there is still large proportion of it left, but there is still time! The nurse did say though that once your blood recovers your hair starts growing again and she has known patients to be showing new hair growth 2 weeks after transplant, it comes back really fuzzy though so it needs to be kept short for a while.

In other news, my sister and niece have both been tatooed in the name of cancer research. A local tattoo parlour put on a day where you could get a tat of the cancer ribbon, my sister and niece chose the ribbon to be the body of a butterfly, and all the money went to cancer research. And you could get the ribbon the official colour of your chosen cancer and they chose, wait for it...multiple myeloma. Just goes to show the multitude and diverse ways you can do your little bit these days. Respect.