Day 7 - Watch and wait

From what I can tell, Courtney had a pretty good day today, relatively speaking of course. And that's relative to the fact that she's confined to a hospital room with a nasty gash in her arm and a pair of tubes protruding from her chest delivering a fairly toxic chemical into her blood stream to destroy leukemic cells in her bone marrow that are trying their best to take over her body. Relative to her typical Friday, I would say that today sucked. Sorry, but that's the first word that came to mind and I couldn't think of synonym suitable to replace it.

Her doctor had told her that she could start feeling some side effects from the therapy as early as six hours into it. He also said that she may never really feel any. More than one doctor has told her that how she felt the week preceding her hospitalization should be worse than anything she feels here on out. That's good news to hear and exactly what we'll be hoping for. So far, no apparent adverse side effects.

The good:

• Courtney's neutrophils count was near a 1000. They had been at 0 until today. That's really good news, as neutrophils are what help us battle bacteria, and though the therapy will more than likely take those back down, she at least has some protection in the mean time.
• After receiving a unit of platelets yesterday, when they dropped to 12000, she's back up to 33000. Normal is 150,000 to 400,000.
• Courtney was able to get up and walk around her floor. We want her to use her muscles as much as possible so they don't waste away during her hospital stay.
• Jill and Frankie, from where I work at Dannon, brought us BBQ brisket from Railhead for lunch. Thank you!

The bad:

• Courtney still has Leukemia.
• We still don't exactly know which type of AML she has and have to hope she's on the right treatment plan.
• Her blasts are still at 98%. We want it to be zero.
• She didn't sleep well last night. She wasn't in pain and was relaxed, she just didn't sleep much.
• She didn't get to enjoy the Railhead brisket, as her appetite isn't all there right now.

The ugly:

• That nasty gash from where the PICC line had been placed. Although it is looking better day by day.

So, drop by drop, Courtney is receiving the chemicals that are going to help save her life. While the idarubicin is a bright orange liquid (Courtney was hoping for something that looks like that green glowing tube Homer takes home at the beginning of the Simpson's), the cytarabine looks like water. It's amazing that these exist. We're so grateful to the countless scientists and doctors that have worked so brilliantly to come up with these treatments.

Hopefully Courtney is sleeping by now, but in case she happens to be restless and reading this blog: Good-night Court. I LOVE you.