Dinner and a Movie

Wednesday, January 29th

Sleep is still a struggle.  I fall asleep very early in the night around 9pm and sleep well through 12:30am when vitals and blood are drawn.  That process takes 20 - 30 minutes but thoroughly wakes me up.  Each time they draw blood through the PICC line they flush them with saline, it seems like a lot of saline.  It's cold and you can feel it rush into your heart and instantly through your system.  My head feels like it's swimming in it and it makes it difficult to relax back to sleep. They have asked me if I want sleeping medication and I keep refusing.  I generally don't like taking drugs for anything.  In this case it seems silly since I'm swallowing 10-15 pills a day plus dripping chemo into my blood all day.  We'll see how it goes.

The other factor for restless nights is now I know that the results from the blood labs taken at midnight will be back by 3:30 - 4:00 am and I start wondering what the new results are going to look like. And, now that I've resumed work there are the standard list of 100 things that need to get done that would keep me awake back home.  I was unable to fall asleep at all through the night to the early morning vitals check.  My only payoff was that the WBC results came back at 7.7!  Really firing away to zero now.

I had lots of visitors today.  My friend Anthony was in town from Vero and stopped by.  Joanne cleared her schedule and was able to spend the better part of the day with me.  My sister Cynthia stopped by.  My other remote siblings sent along a great care package with some lotions and a big comfy blanket.  The weather has actually been cool and rainy outside and the hospital is a cold place by nature, so the blanket is a welcome addition.  

Joanne and I were able to snuggle in bed and try to take a short nap in the afternoon.  But she quickly realized that between nursing visits, room cleaning, food services, and doctor rounds, there's very little rest at the hospital.

The lead Hematologist popped back in today to say hello.  He definitively confirmed that I do not have M3 which I was starting to suspect anyway.  I asked about probability of a marrow transplant being required and was wasn't ready to commit on that one.  He's trying to sell it like it could still go either way and we just have to wait for lab results.

Minor note for now, a blood test showed an elevated enzyme in my liver which is unrelated to the Leukemia.  It could be a possible side effect of the chemo, but they're going to monitor and test further.  It's like going in for an oil change, might as well fix it all while I'm here.

My mom came in for the evening and we watched a movie on my laptop. She brought in some great Italian food from Brio, but it was very spicy.  When I was ready to go to bed I started to feel nauseous. I'd been doing so well fighting back the chemo, now I was going to do myself in with Italian food!  The good news was that I held strong and made it through the night.  I'll have to watch the diet a little closer.