Thanks for the WBCs

Well that certainly did the trick, all of you sending me those interstitial WBCs. Massive surge! All the best, some experienced, some still in the package, nothing but top shelf.

WBC hit 1.6, total neutrophil just over 1000, and I am already half packed at 10 am and rearing to go! A whole slew of docs came in around 8:30, just as I was finishing breakfast. Dr. Majeti, who has been the one doc I have seen every day and has been great at following up on everything for me, goes over to my white board and erases Make More WBCs, and erases Make More RBCs, and says OK, those are done. They are all beaming, and I am beaming and doing the Rocky dance, it must be great for them to give someone good news! And it is awesome to get it.





So Dr. Coutre asks Is there somewhere you can stay near here, you need to get your last round of chemo on Friday, and I say I will just drive up and thoroughly enjoy the trip, no problem, and he says OK, you can go home today. The skies open up, sunbeams pour into the room, a host of angels appear on the sculpture in the garden, harps play and bugles trumpet, and the hand of God herself flashes out of the heavens and slaps me upside the head!

Of course there will have to be a visit next week for a bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap, but I tell them that was a great movie and I’ll see it again and enjoy it, and there will have to be precautions etc. and I say No Problem I Am Da Man at following instructions, which (stop laughing) I am in this particular case and will continue to be.

I call Dana right away, tell her to forget packing to come up here, just grab an empty suitcase, let’s go Are you in the car yet? I call her again at 9:30 and she is running around the house sterilizing surfaces, I say Look forget that, GET ME OUTTA HERE! Get in the car and drive! She better be on the way. I am sitting here filled with some very mixed and powerful emotions, people are visiting to say goodbye and I have tears in my eyes, of joy, and this huge release of tension like HA HA HA HA we pulled a Fast One there Shit that was close WHEW. And then I think Well, calm down stupid it isn’t over yet, there’s a long way to go, don’t forget cranial irradiation for 10 weeks this summer I think it is, and next week’s bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap could say remission is all a big illusion just yet - We’re sorry but you did pull a fast one Mr. Fiore, get back in here. and how will my body like the next phase of chemo, EARLY INTENSIFICATION sounds kind of ominous.

Now that I have talked myself back down to where I can at least feel some gravity, I have to walk off some of this energy, spend my last $3.19 at Starbucks (that’s what I need, caffeine), find a big card in the gift shop for the staff here. I need to get the nurse to come disconnect me from the antibiotic IV drip, I must say I hate being tethered.

1pm now, waiting for Dana and Sandy the nurse. Sandy needs to go over the whole book of stuff I have to do. Dr. Majeti came in at noon and told me about my appointment for Friday, and confirmed that we would find out if I was in remission with next week’s bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap (BMB&ST). That needs a better acronym. I am still surging with emotions and tensions and I am crying when I thank him for all he has done, and even crying now trying to write about it. Such a huge release of pressure, and yet knowing there is still so much more behind it. I have to finish packing and do something else for a while.

On the way out of the hospital I gave the nurses the jade thingy, told them how impermanent it was but made of rock, and to please have each nurse take a piece of jade from it in relation to the care they felt they gave me, it’s a zen thing. I did give a special piece to one of the nurses that had especially admired it, and she told me that although she was raised Catholic she was the middle child and had rebelled and become Buddhist. She seemed like my antithesis, very quiet and contemplative and soft, but for some reason she told me this story that had some tangents to my life.

She said she found out very recently that her father was eight hours from becoming a Catholic priest when the Japanese attacked her village in the Philippines, and the whole village had to escape to the mountains. The ceremony never occurred, and he fell in love with her Mom soon after and she was thus eventually born. She did not know he had ever contemplated priesthood until an uncle was having a house blessed recently, and ten priests showed up in the village for the ceremony. Oddly her father seemed to know them all and played basketball with them, then the priests all dressed in their habits for the mass. When they started reciting the mass in Latin her father joined right in, and her grandmother said “Ah he still remembers it perfectly.” The story was out, and she had gained insight why her religious choices had upset her parents.

I told her as a middle child she was destined to rebel. I myself as a middle child, 6 years old, hid in the woods the day of St. Peter’s School signups, per the instructions of the neighborhood kids. This was to ensure I could go to public school in a state that was 60% Catholic, and it worked. St. Peter’s was full and I was the first to attend the superior public schools of Warwick RI. I know that is a tenuous and twisted leap to the priest story but I am going with it.

Man oh man, what a strange and bizarre round tripper this is. Three weeks ago I was going to Stanford in an ambulance, wondering if I’d ever see my kids again, at least expecting to get very sick, a whole jumble of anxiety and fear and grit and determination and disbelief. My wife was driving behind the ambulance, wondering if we'd made love for the last time and didn't even know it. I guess she knew she'd see the kids, and I knew I wasn't dying just yet.

Now here I am driving back to SLO, just filled and spilling over with joy and relief and elation. As we come into SLO I am trying to prepare for walking into the house and not just totally breaking down, because I don’t want to freak Mikey out with how scary the whole ordeal really was and is. So instead I just totally break down about 3 miles from the house, that way I look like I really am ill, red eyes and tufty hair coming through the door to grab the boys and sniff their heads.

It is all so damn joyous. The kids have teenage heads now and don‘t smell like those great little baby heads, and all these other little things are waiting that feel so good, like piles of bills to pay, the lawn needs mowing, the dog gives me the big greeting and sniffing, it’s fantastic. I am here in SLO. Mike and John both note that I look a lot worse than when they saw me 2 weeks ago, and I start crying again and tell them Well, I’ve been in isolation and I am just so damn glad to see and hug you guys. Over dinner I explain a lot more about what is going on with my blood chemistry, so that they can understand more of this, and they do.

I feel like I probably should have gotten one more dose of blood before we left, but I have to go back Friday for the last chemo of this round and I’ll get some then. Feeling a little light-headed with a slight headache, but then it’s been the most emotional day in 3 weeks. Sandy the nurse has prepped us before we left with all the info we need, reactions to look for, and the most amazing thing is I don’t have to wear the HEPA mask except if I see construction sites or dust clouds, Aspergillus fungus is the enemy. The PICC line maintenance is pretty critical too, can’t let it creep in for more than 1 cm, so we’re going to be anal on that.

Sandy says I should have some Benadryl in the car in case I have an allergic reaction to Elspar, and I have an anaphylactic reaction, i.e. throat closure. This gives me this great new idea too, the Papal Tracheotomy Kit. Combine a pen knife with the Papal Seal, tube with the Papal Seal and a little antibiotic packet, bingo, the Papal Tracheotomy Kit. I know that is not really funny, but it would sell like hotcakes. I am going to go try to connect this Neutrino laptop on my wireless broadband network for the first time, send up this Blog, fix the Charter Webspace photo problem.

This is lunch from Double Menu Day!