D + 4 - A Friendly Visit

So far, everything is going as planned, with the exception of a horrible rash caused by one of Courtney’s antibacterial medication. She’s been dealing with it since Thursday, and if not for that, would probably be feeling quite well. She is, in fact, feeling pretty good. They’ve been doing a good job of staying ahead of the nausea and she has yet to suffer any bad side effects from the chemotherapy.

As for the chemotherapy, even though she finished the last dose a week ago, we’re still seeing the effects of it. Her red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets have been steadily dropping this week. Courtney is now what’s considered neutropenic and extremely vulnerable to infections. Now we wait two to four weeks for her counts to get back to a safe range before she can go home. However, it’s normally 6 to 12 months before all of her counts return to normal. In case you're interested, here are her lab results so far:

Day		WBC	Neutrophils	RBC	Platelets	Hematocrit	Comments
Normal Range		4.1 – 10.9	2000 – 5000	4.00 – 5.20	140 – 440	37.0 – 46.0
Dec 04	D - 8	7.6	5900		243	32.2
Dec 06	D - 6	9.5	7900	2.96	201	28.1
Dec 07	D - 5	10.4	8600	3.31	197	31.5
Dec 08	D - 4	8.9		3.40	190	32.6
Dec 09	D - 3	6.7	5200	3.16	172	30.1
Dec 10	D - 2	4.2	3300	3.35	158	31.9
Dec 11	D - 1	3.7		3.18	170	30.2
Dec 12	D - 0	2.8	2700	2.95	154	28.1	Transplant
Dec 13	D + 1	1.5	1400	2.52	132	24.0
Dec 14	D + 2	1.1	1000	2.26	92	21.2	Got blood.
Dec 15	D + 3	0.6	600	2.93	62	26.9
Dec 16	D + 4	0.3	200	3.12	48	28.5

Officially, she can’t see the kids until it’s just about time to go home. They don’t allow kids past a set of double doors to her hallway, and while neutropenic, they don’t allow Courtney to exit the double doors. It’s been over a week that she last saw the kids and it will likely be at least a couple of more weeks before she will get to see them again. : ( Unfortunately, they’ve all been fighting colds, so even if they were allowed, they couldn’t visit her anyway.

The best part of the weekend was that Courtney was visited by her best friend, Amber, from Utah who she hadn’t seen since we moved in 2002. Amber was able to stay with her Friday and Saturday night providing Courtney with much needed laughter and fun. Not quite the slumber parties of old, but I think they still had a good time considering where they were and why they were there. Thank you, Amber.

Though we aren’t quite sure how long Courtney will be in the hospital, we like to think that we’re just about halfway home. What we’re really hoping for is that her counts rebound quickly and she’s home before next year!