Day 117, Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

A bit of a belated update: I've been out of the University of Washington Medical Center since Tuesday afternoon, but I've been a little too brain-wiped for the purposes of proper writin's, which gets us to today.

First, a word about the fever: it was simply a neutropenic fever, which is to say that it was a result of my plummeted cell counts, and not actually the result of any microbial agent, as evidenced by the fact that every single test ("cultures") they performed on the samples taken came back negative. The same thing happened to me, while in hospital, after the first transplant. [They took a lot of blood for samples. In fact, they took back most of one of the units of blood they had given me, which I thought was both amusing and somewhat sad.] 

Second, a word about my bottom: there has been substantial improvement. Also, I submit that most of you have no real appreciation for how robust and flexible your rectum is, as it does not pain you severely if you so much as shift position. It suffices to say that a surprising amount of dermatological stress runs through the region on a regular basis that you don't notice at all, and you are all taking that for granted, you lucky bastards.

In a pleasant coincidence, my regular Red Team PA, Kristen, was on weekend rounds at UWMC, so we got to hang out, which was lovely. I also had more than a few nurses and techs pop into my room to say hi; apparently I left quite the impression on the seventh floor during my time in for the first transplant.

On Saturday, my neutrophil count was about fifty. On Sunday, it was over five hundred. This, as I mentioned to my physicians, was statistically unlikely, but was likely accounted for by the g-csf shots that I'd been receiving daily for some time, and a ridiculously early engraftment of Shiny's Sparkles. This is a promising result, and my neutrophil counts have continued to climb since, which I know from daily blood draws. 

Since my counts were up so quickly, and since my cultures had all came back clean and whistling a jaunty tune, it was decided to take me off of intravenous antibiotics and wait twenty-four hours to see if I relapsed. When no relapse was forthcoming, I was cleared for general autonomy, and the discharge process commenced. Discharge from the hospital, that is. I'm not going to tell you to get your mind out of the gutter, because I generally encourage that sort of thing.

Mom and Dad came to visit me daily, and were good enough to smuggle me in Americanos from Vivace, which were greatly appreciated, as hospital coffee suffices for caffeine delivery, laxative action, and very little else, having a flavour that is comprised largely of organic molecules exposed to an excess of thermal energy. Burnt. Hospital coffee is burnt. Ma and Pa even made an early visit on Tuesday morning, before Shiny's flight out. I like to imagine that the plane had a glittery, rainbow contrail stretched out behind it in the sky.

I continue to be in excellent spirits, and generally doing extremely well physically, though I definitely have some fatigue setting in. This should fade with time, exercise, and the removal of certain medications; though that last will be a long time coming.

Have you ever heard of agreeable Julius Caesar? He came, he saw, he concurred.