Still in the hospital

I'm still in the hospital, starting to feel somewhat better than my first day or two.  I still have pneumonia, but haven't had a fever since Sunday night, so that's good news.  I'll probably be here through early next week, and then continue on antibiotics at home.

The first night or two were pretty rough. Sometimes when I'm severely anemic I can get a little loopy, especially in the middle of the night.  In the light of day I realized how much my oxygen-starved brain had distorted things.  Something to remember!  Fortunately I'm on much steadier ground now.

My oncologist, Dr. Lamanna, stopped by to discuss the larger picture, which is that my counts have all dropped again.  She said this was to be expected from last week's radiation.  So being extremely tired (red cells), having nose bleeds (platelets), and getting pneumonia (lymphocytes) are not a surprise.  Fortunately the radiation's been working, shrinking the lymph nodes that have been causing me some uncomfortable symptoms, and putting me on track for a transplant. The plan is to have no more treatments for now - and maybe none at all depending on how things look in a month or two. It will probably be a good month before my bone marrow returns to normal.  In the meantime, I'll be supported by transfusions (outpatient) while I focus on rest and recovery.  NEWSFLASH: while writing this, the rounding doctors came by and said my platelets and red cells have come up quite a bit!

Meanwhile, we've been enjoying watching TV and movies on our iPad mini.  Last week we watched a great documentary from PBS on Billy Jean King.  And last night we watched a beautiful short documentary, Mr. Mergler's Gift, from the National Film Board of Canada.  A chance meeting in a park brings together an aging piano teacher and a 9-year-old girl, a recent immigrant from China, who has been asking her parents to let her take piano lessons.  He is dying, and she turns out to be a prodigy. The relationship they form is a mutual gift.  It's amazing the filmmaker was able to capture this during the short time span in which it occurred. A truly beautiful film.  By the way, if you're not familiar with the National Film Board of Canada, it's a treasure trove of great films - short, feature length, some great animation - all funded by the Canadian government.

In other news, Brian took a break from the hospital the other day to plant some fall flowers on our balconies. A few samples below.  Am I lucky, or what ...