July 14, 2003
Friends,
Thank you for your comments about my word painting. Between the first sentence and now, I just got the rest of my dinner, an hour late. Never mind that it was the appetizer. There was no update yesterday, because of the vagaries of the power company. The power went out about dinner time and was out till after ten. Yesterday, I felt pretty good. I went for a brisk walk outside while making some phone calls and talking on the radio. It was fun. Then they made me take a shower:-((((. I had a platelet transfusion yesterday and kind of ran down nicely towards evening. The night was really rough. Lots of medications and IV's and other disturbances, along with a lot of tossing and turning on my part. At 3:30am I finally realized that my mouth was full of coagulated blood. We called the nurse in and completed the 4am rituals. Afterward, I finally started sleeping well. Morning came way too early and started right out with an RBC transfusion. The combination of lack of sleep and Benadryl, effectively wiped me out for the rest of the day. I slept from 1pm till 4:30pm. I have been craving a salty snack, unfortunately most salty snacks like potato chips and popcorn have sharp or pointy edges that could cause a great deal of damage to my mouth. Menchie suggested "bagoong", which is a Filipino shrimp paste:-) That didn't sound too appealing. Today she had a great idea, saltine crackers, I asked her to include butter and she had a deal. Boy that was good! I have developed a couple of different rashes on various places, the latest one they think might be a drug reaction. They are going to keep these rashes under close scrutiny and evaluation. Some of my helium balloons have started to take a nose dive, so we re-inflated them by mouth and taped them to the wall. It's now back to its former glory. My beard is falling out rapidly, but I still have my eyebrows. I just rub my face and whiskers fall like snow. It is fun, I just don't like it when it get on my food. I wish I could turn my beard off permanently. Menchie mentioned women and their hairy legs, but I decided not to comment on it.
On the medical front, my Coumadin has been doubled in an attempt to get it to an effective level. No fever yesterday or today, but I continue on the neutropenic protocol. The doctor is still happy with my progress, except for the Coumadin. My scalp is very sensitive and my right arm is almost always uncomfortable. I had a platelet transfusion yesterday and today I got a unit of RBC and 4 bags of potassium.
Lab Results |
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Blood Cell Type |
|
|
|
|
| WBC | 4.5 | .6 | .6 | .7 |
| RBC | 4.30 | 2.26 | 2.46 | 2.40 |
| HGB | 13.9 | 7.6 | 8.3 | 7.9 |
| PLT | 130 | 30 | 20 | 37 |
That's it for now.
Ted Wilcox
tw@wilcoxent.com