It's been too long since I've blogged, my bad. But with good reason, as I was thoroughly enjoying the company of my husband. Granted he was only here for 10 days but, it's the whole pre-and-post process of prepping and then decompressing that I like to include as well. So how am I doing in this Christmas Eve-post-husband's-visit state of existence? I'd say that I'm doing pretty well, still having some ups and downs with side effects but staying stable with my blood levels. I dealt with a really bad week of awful nausea as a result of coming off of a medication (yay!!), which I could have helped with adding another medication, but you kind of get to a point of "I don't really want to take anymore pills"... And, I totally hit that point. I still have some nausea but have really decreased any caffeine consumption and have something to take for nausea when it's more than manageable.

I am still receiving transfusions for RBCs and platelets but they are slowly (very slowly) becoming less frequent. So, it was a nice surprise to go in today for labs and not need to get anything. Early Christmas treat for me! It's been eight days since I last received platelets (the longest I've gone so far) and just over two weeks for RBCs. I had three rounds of Neupogen shots, with my last on the 8th and while they were not the most comfortable thing to experience, they did help boost the growth of neutrophils. I crossed that tricky ANC "barrier" of 1.0, getting as high as 2.07 (which kind of floored me) for a day before it came back down and has been hovering just above 1 (literally, it's 1.01 today). Now I have at least some sort of immunity but still need to continue to be cautious and do the mask thing when around crowds and (especially) in the hospital. I can't let this freedom go to head and start doing crazy things like eating sashimi or licking handrails, haha.

At this point, three months out from my ATG treatment we were hoping that things would have progressed a little quicker with cell regeneration, but it does look like things are progressing, only at a slower pace. So, it's still really just a waiting game, until my levels are high enough that I'm not needing transfusions and can have my PICC line removed. Well, at least I am getting the white Christmas experience without the annoyance of shoveling!

I have been angry. I don’t even really like saying the word because it’s an emotion that I’m a bit uncomfortable with experiencing. But, at least expressing it is better than keeping it pent up, right? And, I swear (what?!). Yes, ask my parents and they’ll confirm. But, to my defense, I feel like I’m doing it more than usual because I’m basically housebound and experiencing cabin fever on my bad days.

On the flipside of anger, I certainly have some days that feel void of emotion and are just really mentally foggy. It took me a while to categorize them, but these my friends, are my version of depression. It’s like I’m sinking, falling away from myself and am just an empty shell watching the world and days pass me by, categorized by a lack of interest. It’s just this weird sort of numbness, which I really hate and that can be very difficult to shake. And, then when I look back on those particular days, I get angry at myself for wasting my time because that’s what I do. Confrontation is not my forte unless it involves myself. I just beat up on myself and then try to put on that plastered happy face, hiding the cracks and breaks of emotions that I want no one to see.

So, when I’ve needed to really do some resting recently, it’s a mental struggle to be okay with sleeping in and being a couch carrot when it’s all that I could really muster. When you have no energy, you shouldn’t feel guilt about resting...that’s what I would tell anyone else, so why is it so hard to apply that to myself? Luckily I have a husband, who likes to tell me these sort of things too, which really helps.

So when I started feeling guilty about my Mom cleaning the house while I was lounging around like a 1950s starlet, I just told myself that my bone marrow would thank me for it. And you know what, I think it did! When I went to the hospital on Wednesday, I needed to get platelets but not RBCs (yay!). And, my platelets didn’t drop too dramatically (woohoo)! Lesson learned: good things do come from resting (duh!).