Yes that’s right! I did add the disclaimer to my message earlier in the week and the unthinkable has happened. I have just arrived home from the hospital where I went through the normal routine, with the obvious exception that I was advised against returning home tomorrow. All things were a go prior to heading to the hospital, my Mom was leaving this morning, and has left, to drive home with a car load of stuff and we are scheduled to be out of the apartment tomorrow. Everything was flowing like a movie as we packed the last few things in the car last night. Of course once we got to the hospital everything went ass backwards, my appointment was missing, my blood work was not in the computer, my Hickman didn’t work, damn near everything that could go wrong went wrong. Thus as I was sitting in Clinic Room #7, no less, I wrote in my journal, as I often do when waiting for the Doctors, that I was concerned about my platelet count as they had been dropping slowly but consistently over the past few weeks. Anyway, of all the times that I was right and wish I wasn’t today tops the charts as my platelets were cut in half since my last blood test and Dr. Lipton informed me that he was concerned about the movement. Concerned enough to advise me that if I decided to go home it would be against his judgement and advice. We had a brief confrontation as I felt he was not respecting my space and giving me the proper environment in which to acknowledge much less accept this new information, thus I resisted and informed him that he was not “communicating in an acceptable fashion” and that I would make a decision within a few hours. I know he was right and only acting in my best interests, but as you may be able to imagine it was a BIG pill for me to swallow. Either way after a really good chat with my Nurse Karen I did decide that I am not prepared to leave, which I knew from the start but was not able to accept during my confrontation with Dr. Lipton.
Long story short, my low platelet count could be caused by a number of things and as I have mentioned I am in the phase of my recovery that is a high risk time and I am not up for playing the odds, which my be stacked in my favour but they are unknown. The immediate concern is that my counts are dropping due to a flare of GVHD, others possibilities are I have an infection brewing that we can’t find or my CMV is active. I’ll explain the medical stuff at a later time, or maybe not at all, most important is that I am still feeling fine, my head is all over the place in and out of wonderland, I am a little on the tired side but resting at home and not due back at hospital until for a few day to have more blood work. I have lots of things to share but will get to them later, wanted to catch you before then end of the day. Unfortunate that I won’t be home but this is just another bump in the road, we’ve had a few since November and there will be more. I have once again ‘adjusted the bar’ and will be here for a minimum of 2 more weeks, definitely. After that we will return to play the same day to day game we have played for the past 2 weeks.
You’ll hear from me soon.
Geoff
#4
