Neutro-peenic, yeah!

I've officially gone neutropenic today, neutrophil levels are down to 0.47, so just below the 0.5 threshold. This means I am no longer allowed off the ward and could not have the cheesecake I ordered for my pudding today. Having said that, it is nice to see things going as expected. The general projection for neutrophils from now is that they will flat line in the next couple of days then it is 10-14 days before they get above 0.5 again.

I woke up this morning with really achy hips and legs. When I got my donor stem cells one of the nurses said it would take 24 hours for the cells to find their way to the 'long bones' and she sort of waved her hands around her hips. So asked another nurse this morning if achy hips was a good sign that the stem cells had found their way into my bones. She said some patients do get achy but I was informed by a doctor that it has no bearing on whether the stem cells are in my bones or whether the transplant is going to be successful. Every stage of this I have the immense joy of one bit being done, followed by endless worry that the next bit isn't going to go to work. Now I've got the cells, I'm just agonising over whether the cells will engraft, I need to stop this as it really isn't healthy and doesn't make success any more likely, and actually just makes my time in here a bit more tense. Need to relax into this, 'take every day as it comes' the nurses keep telling me. I shall try.

I have one bit of good news today. I have recently found myself becoming quite angry at cook books that refer to a 'glug', 'lug' or, more worringly, a 'slug' of olive oil. What is this? I would shout. Is a slug more than a glug? Well thanks to the main proprietor of this problem Mr. Oliver we now have an answer to one of these questions. In his monthly mag he reveals various measures in the rear index and I can happily report a 'glug' is 'about 20ml'. So approximately two thirds of two tablespoons. Or around four teaspoons. There, we can all rest easy knowing that we will no longer be under/over oiling.