I go through 2 week cycles for blood counts fluctuations. Every other week I'm low and they give me transfusions for platelets and red blood cells, and a shot of neupogen for white blood cells. The reason why even though the transplant itself was successful, my body is still not producing its own blood. Graft vs. host disease is the reason why the bone marrow has not fully been populated; my body is still fighting the cells my brother has given me. The medication I'm on is supposed to help get rid of this disease and allow the donor's marrow to fully graft in my bones and start making a normal amount of red, white, and platelet cells. Also, the CMV virus requires me to take a very strong antibiotic, so my white blood cells die fighting that and I become neutropenic. I can't even tell you how many times I've been neutropenic in the last 2.5 years.
Having no ability to fight an infection or anything that enters my body, does that scare me anymore? It didn't at first. Everything that has happened since the sepsis in April 2010 though, I'm not sure anymore. I'm much more aware of people around me and how sterile their habits are. This is what I mean when I tell you that I can't see people because I have low blood counts. If we're gonna talk about fear, we might as well address the biggest cause of fear for someone like me. What's the real difference between my daily thinking and that of someone not going through cancer treatment? Mostly I'm ignorant of it. I did feel it on the initial diagnosis day and then on the relapse day, but each time I was told there were treatment options. That doesn't kill the fear, especially the second time if your initial round was rough, but at least you haven't reached the end of the rope.
Anyway, tomorrow will be one whole month since I got out of the hospital after the fall episode with seizures. I've been going to the doctors 2-3 times a week so they can assess whether I'm improving and my complications are resolving or not. Overall, I'm physically stronger and mentally more stable, but there are definitely days where I can't stay awake. I am able to recognize this and tell myself to stop though. In a month's time, I've come a long way. July 6th will mark the 6 month point since the beginning of my transplant and hopefully a lot of the medicines will be stopped. Right now my schedule is totally dependent on what time I have to take the meds...it also affects my appetite. I was on such strong steroids that I ate 5-6 large meals a day. I'm down to 4 meals now and heading towards my old diet habits where I'm not gaining so much weight at such a fast pace. The next step is to gain muscle, which so far has been very slow. It's extremely difficult to put on muscle weight if you're not really mobile. For now, I need to just strengthen my joints; they're the weakest.
I don't know if it's comforting or a disadvantage to know that I've done all this before two years ago. My body has taken this toll before, so this is toll #2. Psychologically, I know I'm capable of doing it again, and doing it better this time. There's a little bit of both, but hopefully I can do it faster this time. All days are pretty much the same for me, not to say unproductive as I'm taking care of everything at home that I did before, but psychologically I have a long distance to go. I am just getting out of the delirium and realizing that the last 5 months are going to be another dent in my life. The car is still going to run smoothly, soon. The big parts are all intact. If I were you, I'd ride along.
No comments:
Post a Comment