Today the leukocyte (white cell) count was 0.4 billion/liter, neatly overturning my hopeful hypothesis that cells were more than doubling every 24 hours. Let's see . . . 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 . . . hard to argue it's not doubling. Well there's no need to be greedy--at this rate I could get back within the normal range in a few days. Also good news was a meaningful uptick in erythrocytes (red cells) and hemoglobin, so I most likely won't need any further transfusions. It's hard to call the platelets, since my last transfusion muddies the water. But the news is good.
There are consequences, though. Last night I was slightly feverish (~ 100), and felt generally lousy. This morning (day +11), my hair officially started falling out. It's not clear how much I'll end up losing, but it was as though a switch was thrown. I will probably have the nurses give me a buzz cut tomorrow (pictures to follow), on the theory that losing a lot of small hairs will be less obnoxious than losing longer hairs. We'll see. So far, for better or worse, the beard seems to be hanging on.
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