MDS Becomes AML - Counting Your Days Away

This morning I woke up waxing philosophic in a kind of existential way. I realized I'd been clock watching and counting the days.

• A few more hours til the next chemo.
• An hour til the current chemo is done.
• Today's the last day of chemo.
• Just another week til I'm out of here (hopefully).
• Three more weeks til the next chemo.
• Another six weeks and we might have a bone marrow donor.
• Four to six months til we come out the other side and get healthy again.

I haven't counted hours, days, weeks and months like this since I was in high school, wishing the school year would end.

The problem with that (as I realized way back then) is simply this: when you count the days away—even if you're counting away time filled with pastimes you'd rather not be doing—you're counting your life away.

As I figured out during adolescence, I must remember to make the most of my time, regardless of having to fill it mostly with things I don't want to do.

It's a bit more difficult to do that now than it was way back then because the time frames involved are more open-ended. In school, you knew when Christmas vacation, spring break and end-of-school-year were coming. Here, we don't know exactly when the next phase is coming. Which leads to much conjecture. And clock watching.

So? What to do?

• More reading.
• More writing.
• More work.
• More focus on doing what I can do right now.

All while keeping my eyes on the ultimate prize.

I can do that.

Okay—here's today's daily tally:

• Platelets: 87,000
• Hemoglobin: 8.7
• White Cells: 4.2

Counts are going down, as expected. But, looks to me like there's no reason to think they'll bottom out too low. The white's will dip underneath the normal range (4.0), but we shouldn't be looking at anything like the dangerously low hemoglobin and platelet numbers that we'd experienced last time.

All good.

Now, there are potentially just eight days left til I might get out of here. But, who's counting?