July 5, 2003
All,
For the last few days I have been having trouble sleeping, because it has been so hot in my room at night. We have had to leave my room door open for ventilation, so we hear all the racket from the nurses station also. I mentioned it to my nurse this morning and she checked the thermostat and it was set at the maximum setting. We turned it down to a comfortable temperature. That will hopefully allow me to close my door and get some sleep. Once the temperature got down, I was able to sleep for an hour and a half this morning and I feel better.
I added my past updates to my website. The url is http://www.wilcoxent.com. Please feel free to tell anybody who is interested about the website.
Since my room faces the ocean, and has a very narrow window, I was unable to see any fireworks yesterday. Thanks to all who dedicated some fireworks to me. I saw some fireworks on TV and I did hear some. One of the patient's family brought in a 4th of July picnic, boy did that smell good! While there were no food riots here as I reported yesterday, the kitchen failed to deliver my breakfast and dinner and screwed up my lunch yesterday. I was not a very happy camper. Fortunately, the meals today have been delivered with flawless precision.
On the medical front, lots of things going on. I finished my induction chemotherapy late yesterday afternoon, and I have been off maintenance fluids for a day. I no longer need to get the eyedrops, so with all that, my nights are becoming much more restful. The doctor is planning to replace the Heparin IV with Coumadin, administered orally. Because I will be on Coumadin, they will keep my platelet levels a little higher than they otherwise might have. So, I will be free from the IV stand probably starting tomorrow. The next phase of my treatment is to fight infections with massive intravenous antibiotics when they arise, as we wait for my immune system to recover. The doctor expects immune system recovery in several weeks. At that point we will start continuation chemotherapy. I don't have much detail on that yet and the course of treatment will be determined at that time based on bone marrow tests. Because I am no longer on chemotherapy it was a singular pleasure this morning to go outside and enjoy the sunshine and the cool coastal breezes, while talking to some friends on the phone and the radio. It was a nice change of pace.
Lab Results |
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Blood Cell Type |
|
|
|
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| WBC | 4.5 | .6 | .6 | .6 |
| RBC | 4.30 | 2.44 | 2.41 | 2.33 |
| HGB | 13.9 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 8.4 |
| PLT | 130 | 15 | 33 | 23 |
I hope you all have a great weekend!
Ted Wilcox
tw@wilcoxent.com