My cell count still hasn’t budged; in fact the numbers are still falling. I may not get a break at all this time which makes me wonder how I’m going to do my laundry. My blanket, sweat pants and shirts all need to be washed as well as my sweater. I suppose I could wash everything except the blanket by hand. Geez, I hope I have enough laundry soap. I’m now digging in and planning on staying in hospital until my last cycle in June. Honestly, my counts are that low and I’ve been told by a few nurses as well as my doc that the body rebounds more slowly with each successive chemo treatment. My first three cycles were probably anomalies due to my numbers bouncing back so quickly, or maybe it took this long for my body to finally call time-out, but at this point I really don’t see much if any hope of going home. That kills me. I can barely talk to my family through FaceTime in the evenings because of the poor connection and even FaceTime audio is really dodgy. I’ll be away from my daughters for over two months with little to no contact.

Wow, I just read that first paragraph again and I think I was perhaps being a bit overly dramatic. After having a bit of cry time this morning I felt better, though I still wonder if I’ll be able to go home. Meanwhile, my nurses seem to be pooling together to help me feel better because they were all happily willing to chat today and Dr. Bambo told me that to look at my numbers alone, she would expect to see someone who looked really ill. Apparently I look pretty healthy! I certainly feel good, other than wooziness when I stand up quickly. I guess that should be something to celebrate and I’m definitely grateful for my continued strength and ability to fight this thing but I’m also painfully aware of how extremely vulnerable I am to infection right now. All the more reason, I suppose, for staying here in my little cocoon, safe from outside cooties.

Lauryn and April, my two nurses for today, gave me a pep talk this evening after Dr. Santiago once again went on about his other patient who is in the ICU. Apparently she’s on dialysis as well as a ventilator due to sepsis. Holy crap. And, as the doc so kindly pointed out, her white blood cell count was higher than mine. I DO NOT need to hear stuff like this, it just freaks me out, and my nurses know it. They both said not to let his comments get into my head, that he doesn’t have much of a filter and tends to blurt whatever is on his mind. While I appreciate his candor, there are probably some things that should be left unsaid!