Category: My lymphoma and related medical stuff

Hard to believe I’ve been here already for ten days. So hopefully about the halfway point. Today my white blood cell count reached the 0.0 level, as expected. So for the time being, I have no immune system. On Saturday I will start receiving injections of Neupogen, to help stimulate my stem cells to rebuild…

(Tim likes to sing this before he goes to sleep and he told me he sings it to himself when he is at school!) I love Daddy, I love Daddy I like Daddy, I like Daddy Who doesn’t like Daddy? Everyone likes Daddy. Goodnight Daddy, Goodnight Daddy (First sung January 10th, 2006, Tom’s second night…

It's midday and Brigid is here. I am tired (but not exhausted – more like the chemo fatigue I felt with the RICE protocol). My cell levels are low – white blood cells almost to zero, platelets at 44. And there's a metallic taste in my mouth. This is all as expected. When my platelets…

Got my white blood and stem cells back today at 10:15 in the morning – 4 million of them in one large syringe. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes. Side effects included feeling warm and a funny, metallic taste in my mouth. And – they’d given me some sort of sedative, so I…

The attending physician and the nurse practitioner were both very optimistic this morning about how things are going. In fact they suggested I might be out in ten or 12 days rather than in two weeks. Hope they’re right. The nurse practitioner, who has been talking to me, Lorraine, wont be here tomorrow for re-injection…

Still feeling good. The nurse practitioner Lorraine discussed my stem cell return, scheduled for Monday at 10:30 in the morning. It will take less than 30 minutes. More on that tomorrow. Here are two pictures from yesterday, when I was visited by two Islamic women from Croton.  First Brigid, then my friend and assistant Judy.…

11:15PM and I am having my last dose of chemotherapy, which will run until after midnight. This is my eighth cycle of Etoposide, which I’ve received every 12 hours since Tuesday (Monday I had something else – can’t remember the name) at 10am and 10pm. Saturday I will get a dose of Melphalan, in the…

It’s 11:30pm of day three, and so far there have been very little in the way of side effects. Only issue is some insomnia – I am given the chemo at 10AM and 10PM, and there are steroids in the mix, which make it difficult to get to sleep. And of course people traipse in…

I basically have four books with me, with two as reserve at home. I am reading three of them simultaneously. Why not? They are all three on varied topics and from different sources. My friend Theresa Bonopartis sent me a book which in most countries is entitled “Praying Self-Abandonment to Divine Love”, but in the…

Specter worked while going through chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease and is now back to full speed. Sen. Arlen Specter, Back in Top Form