November 4, 2003, DAY #7
Friends,
Lots of weird and interesting information today. First, my WBC went up to .3 today. The doctor didn't seem surprised, and didn't discount that it could actually be going up. I discounted it more than he did. I want to see sustained activity. He did say that the donated cells could have implanted by now, and could be growing and producing. That would be incredible news. We shall see what tomorrow brings. That is the interesting information. The weird information is the new anti-viral drug they give me. It has a side effect that they didn't tell me about. It causes some visual effects while it is being infused. In fact, I am experiencing it right now. If I close my eyes, it was like having a strobe light on the back of my eyelids. With my eyes open, everything was flickering. It was very bright. Eventually, I started seeing "scenes". I described a beach scene at sunrise on the east coast to Menchie and the nurse. To change the scene, I just opened my eyes and closed them again. I was able to influence the scene also, by thinking of things I wanted in the scene. I did not find this very pleasant. It was hard to sleep with all that going on inside my head. I am getting a much lower dose at a slower infusion rate today, so the effect is not very pronounced right now. It is much better than the things that Abelcet does to me.
On the medical front, not much new. As I said, I am withholding judgment on the lab results. If they start coming up right away, it would make me VERY happy. My creatinine has descended a little to 1.4. This indicates continued kidney functioning, recovering from whatever damage all these drugs have done to me.
Lab Results |
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Blood Cell Type |
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| WBC | 4.5 | 1.1 | 0.7 | <0.2 | 0.3 |
| RBC | 4.30 | 3.03 | 3.08 | 3.02 | 2.92 |
| HGB | 13.9 | 11.6 | 11.8 | 10.6 | 10.2 |
| PLT | 130 | 101 | 85 | 47 | 42 |
Ted
tw@wilcoxent.com