Dispatches from TransplantLand: Day +12 (What the...???)

Beth and I had the same reaction, simultaneously, when the Nurse Practitioner gave us the white cell count this morning. "What the...???" We looked at each other, and then the smiles broke out. The white count was a whopping 4.7--within normal range, low-normal, but still normal. After the previous day's emotional anguish, I'd almost been dreading hearing the results. Either the immune system was working away, oblivious to the external turmoil or the anger had been harnessed and directed to the highest priority task: building white blood cells. The process of engraftment was going forward. The stem cells were finding their home in the bone marrow and setting up their production lines.

Just a few minutes before, I had been standing outside on the sidewalk in front of the clinic, making my series of phone calls. First I had to evict the housesitter and make some handover arrangements. There were a couple of other logistics phone calls, and notifying my other sister that it looked like we could be pretty close to discharge, so she could make sure things were on track for Beth's house to be ready. Letting everybody involved know what was going on and making sure that everybody was on the same page took probably 45 minutes. On my way back into Treatment Room B I stopped at the social workers' office to let her know the broad outline of what had gone on, just in case it was going to have any medical ramifications, also to see if she could talk to Beth and give an outside perspective.

Back in Treatment Room B, the nurse waited for instructions from higher up. Should they still administer the Neupogen since the white count had gone up so far? Was it possible that Beth could be discharged on Day 14, the day we had been told was the earliest anyone had ever been discharged? While we waited for word, Beth was given more potassium orally. These pills are gigantic. Although her potassium was in normal range, their protocol is to keep it high.

Then the nurse came back with the syringe. Since it was the first day of a normal white count, she would have another shot of Neupogen. The two-day Neupogen-free clock wouldn't start until the next day. The first possible discharge day would be Thursday, Day 15, assuming Tuesday's lab results were good.

I had been too busy phoning and making arrangements to swim during the morning. After we got back to the apartment and had lunch we spent some time with a DVD I had gotten from Netflix called "Sold Separately: Classic Kids Commercials". It was pretty entertaining. The production values on some of those old commercials are amazingly primitive. You can't imagine that any kids today would beg their parents for a toy based on seeing one of these classic gems. They are very wordy and seem to go on forever. The slogans are unbelievably corny. Some of the ads contained prices for the toys, which made us curious about what the equivalent prices would be today. Using the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Consumer Price Index Calculator, we discovered that one large rideable truck that was advertised at $29 in about 1965 (our estimate of the year) would cost around $189 now. Looking at that truck, I'd be surprised if it would really cost more than about $40 at WalMart. That's globalization for you. Toys seem to have gotten much cheaper over the years, probably because of the manufacturing being shipped offshore. This prompted a philosophical conversation about consumerism and things being too cheap, which I won't rehash here.

We both decided to take naps in the late afternoon, since the day before had been so stressful. I was well-rested when I finally got to the exercise room to try out the elliptical machine, listening to the beginning of "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen on my iPod.