Climbing Upwards

Thursday, February 13th 

WBC jumped to 0.8!  3x jump over the previous day, heck if you round you get a whole number.  My hemoglobin dropped again so I need another pint of blood.  I started reading up on diet for blood and things like red meat, spinach, and exercise come in high on the list to stimulate blood growth.  I'm already anxious about getting to tomorrow's biopsy so need to slow down and focus on the day.

After getting some work done in the morning, I was unhooked around 11:00.  I showered then made my way to the stair tower.  I've been thinking about climbing the stairs for a while now and felt the time was right.  I made my way down from the 10th floor and figured if fatigue set in I could just bail out to the elevator on any floor and head back.  With the basement levels and one more floor above plus the roof access, there were 13 flights in all.  Going down was easy but I could feel the muscle atrophy in my legs.  The way back up was much more challenging.  My legs felt pretty strong actually, but with the reduced blood count, getting oxygen to my body was a struggle.  I had to take one flight at a time and then rest a good minute or two to let my heart rate come down.  I started to think about what happens if I pass out by myself in the stairwell, but I was feeling strong and that wasn't going to happen.  It took a little while but I made the entire climb to the top and even raised my arms in victory although no one was watching.  Exercise - check.

My dad and step mom brought me a five guys burger. Red meat  - check. We hung out for a while and even fired up the Xbox.  Exercise - double check.

My mom came in the evening and we went down and had a little dinner at the hospital cafeteria.  They were serving spinach cutlets, which were not half bad.  Spinach check.

Big day tomorrow, found out the biopsy is schedule for 3:00pm.  We originally thought it was going to be first thing in the morning so that's a little disappointing as I worry about getting back preliminary results now by tomorrow night.  I also cannot eat prior to the test for 8 hours however, the schedule bumps at that lab frequently, so now I can't eat any breakfast just in case they call me early.  Going to be a long day and with all of this in my head, and probably a long night.