Day + 4

So today was a busy day.....my mom, Dave, the kids (minus Alex), and Paul & Nikki all came to visit. It was so great to see everyone. I breaks up the boredom of this place like you wouldn't believe.

My counts are as follows

Platelet: 55
White: less than 50
Red: 28.7

To explain the white count; I guess the lab only reports that my counts are below 50 they don't actually give us that they are at 0. My nurse said it's a new thing around here and they used to report lower numbers. So I could be anywhere between 0-49 I suppose.

Also I don't know if I explained the overall process that well but the purpose the the Stem Cell Transplant is to give those very high doses of chemotherapy that I got when I first checked in. That high does of chemo is what hopefully killed my cancer. In the meantime since it is so lethal it kills off everything else in my bone marrow. One of my friends up here says it's like peeing out your bone marrow after the chemo. They give us so much hydration I am constantly peeing.

After the chemo annihilates everything they give me my own stem cells to rescue my immune system. So hitting 0 is kind of like the chemo doing it's job and now hopefully my stem cells will start to kick in and reproduce white blood cells.

I hope that helps explain and it is accurate. There are a ton of sites to look it up if your really into the entire process.

I am still holding a very conservative estimate for my release date. I don't want to get the kids hope up that I will be out of here any sooner. We did that once when I got admitted for a fever back in the fall and it tore them up not knowing when I would be home. I am hoping this way I might get out earlier and pleasantly suprise them.

Thanks to everyone for posting comments - I read them all daily.