+11

Last time around, day 11 was the day my hair started coming out. What hair I've still got is hanging on today, but I don't think it's all going to survive the next few days--unless it's more a question of selection than attrition. We shall see. Visually it won't make much difference, since my current crop is short, sparse, and predominately white.

The white cell (leukocyte) counts rebounded quickly from the nadir (<100, 200, 200, 500, 700, 800 million/L on successive days), a couple of days ahead of last time, and after a deeper drop the platelet count has gone up on its own since yesterday (5, 13, 18 billion/L, though the 13 was aided by a transfusion on Sunday). So I am already over the line for leukocytes, and probably have only another two or three days before the platelets are at acceptable levels.

The red cells, as before, are lagging, and today I posted a lower hemoglobin (9 g/dL) than ever before. As long as this number doesn't drop much further, a little anemia won't keep me from being released. The new thing this week has been a little scare about infections (the coffee table bruise took on some extra redness that concerned the docs), so I have been doing two a day infusions of vancomycin while we wait for the blood cultures to come back. I am convinced there is no infection and that the bruising was just weird because of the combination of no platelets and a vintage de Sade coffee table. Also my clumsiness. As a bonus, though, I got to watch most of the presidential debate hooked up to an IV drip, which provides a feeling of distance. If we'd only thought to watch with the sound off it would have been perfect.