Catching up

[desperance]

Whoops - my pledge to post regularly slipped a little, there. Sorry 'bout that.

This is Day Plus Eight, and all the news is good. During our little interstice Karen has mostly been feeling rotten and barely eating; her white blood cell count was down to 100 two days ago, which is awesome and ideal and kinda scary also, because what if it didn't turn around? Also she had to have an infusion of platelets, because that count had dropped below 10K which is getting into non-clotting territory. A bag of platelets looks remarkably like a bag of my semi-gelled chicken stock, but I was good and didn't ask to taste.

Since then, though, K has been feeling better and started to eat: banana oatmeal in the mornings (for I am awesome and thought to bring steel-cut oats with me, and bananas are the only fruit - other than avocado - that she's allowed in neutropenia) and then the soups and pastas of the astronaut food.

And today we had another blood count, and her numbers are way up, to 1900 little white blood cells and 45K platelets. It's the ultimate hairpin, your numbers crash downward and then swoop upward, and this is the ideal path to follow. She is still in neutropenia until she hits 4000 of the good white stuff, but the doctors are confident she'll be there by Tuesday. Then she gets a final infusion, and basically we relax until Saturday, when we go home.

Meanwhile, as foreseen, her hair has fallen out. Most of it, anyway. The sad remnants were shaved off yesterday, and behold: is she not beautiful?

Comments

[history_monk]

Thanks for posting, I was starting to get worried. That smile is wonderful.

[tiger_spot]

Yay blood count! Yay eating!

Karen is gorgeous.

[lagilman]

It's a rare person with a head so perfectly shaped for showing!

[sovay]

The sad remnants were shaved off yesterday, and behold: is she not beautiful?

Please tell Karen from me that she looks like Yul Brynner. It's a compliment.

[themis1]

She is indeed stunning. A friend of mine in a similar situation remarked that hats become astonishingly easy to wear, and enhance rather than hide, because why would we want to do that?

[larryhammer]

Yay smile!

[anef]

Karen is looking great. Best wishes for the recovery.

[madbaker]

Very much so.

[al_zorra]

O yes! Thank goodness!

I too was getting anxious -- but dear Karen commented twice at Fox Valley so I thought, well, things seem to be well -- but! where is Chaz? and just wondering.

You and Karen must come back to Mexico now and see what you weren't able to this time. We're going back, and hopefully the next time we'll be able to include Puebla.

Sorry for being incoherent. 16 hours straight of traveling and just got home and am checking the home stuffs to see if they all still work. Halloween all around, including all the police barriers ready to be deployed starting tomorrow noonish for that annual Village Halloween Parade. The friary of St. Anthony's has glowing pumpkins in all the windows. It's remarkably quiet here -- well it is Monday night - Tuesday very early AM. But at this time tomorrow night -- not.

[mizkit]

Karen does, in fact, look gorgeous. She has a very well-shaped head!♥*!

[swan_tower]

She is indeed beautiful -- there is nothing quite so lovely as happiness.