Tuesday, December 22, 2009

MDS: Blood Count - How Low Can You Go?

Yesterday’s count:
  • Platelets: 26,000
This number hasn’t been that low since I left the hospital last April.

Dr. O says it explains why I’ve been so tired during this past Shots Week. She also reminds me that the count goes down during Shots, then rebounds later.

But, I’m not pretending. This bothers me. A couple of week ago the count was 179,000. Now this?

Okay, okay—I’m probably spending too much time and energy ruminating about these numbers. They seem to go up and down like an elevator gone wild. And, yes, I know all too well that Shots Weeks make me feel like doo-doo.

But, if you’re stuck lying around on the couch for a week watching old movies and football game you don’t care about, it’s not difficult to overly focus on what’s bothering you.

Which leads to all kinds of bad mental games: i.e.
  • fixating on your own mortality;
  • wondering how your own body, seemingly doing just fine nine months ago, has become something rather delicate;
  • trying to understand why TV advertising is so stupid.
But, the hardest part is trying to get your head around the idea that this routine—these week-long sessions of feeling terrible and being useless—are going to go on forever.

Whatever forever is.

So, if there are 10 or 20 more years to live, I’m going to feel like crap for one-quarter of the time?

Now there’s a great prospect for you.

But, as the pundits say—it beats the alternative.
                                       

2 comments:

  1. hey mitch, you are a voice of many. i too suffer this and you put the whole process in perfect reality. every bit of what you say is how i feel. i, too feel the same and particularly as the mthly treatments add up. i wait and wait for these damn counts to rise so i can get the BMT done and over.
    my life is shots, no doo doo by the way (I wish) and great fatigue.
    this is so far from what i am or do or love. this is one giant endurance, par excellence!
    mb

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