Blood test day. We both try to be pragmatically cheerful as we get ready to go to the hospital. It’s difficult to know what to expect but we’re hopeful that Husband won’t need further chemo this time.
Red cells are up from 128 to 131. Husband can’t resist punching the air with delight. Doc laughs, ‘They’re just numbers – I could tell you anything – 16!’ They’re not just numbers they’re good numbers. And we are so very grateful. He explains that as far as they’re concerned, 129, 128 then 131 mean ‘stable’.
The Doc says he wants to see Husband in 2 weeks and if all is well at that point the next appointment will be a month after that. He explains that the blood numbers may go up a bit, be stable in the 12s or 13s for a while and then drop off / ‘find their level’ but there isn’t likely to be a precipitous drop. They are really hopeful that things will be stable for a while but the numbers could start to drop after chemo stops. ‘Haematologically speaking, you can live well with anything over 10’. Mmm.
He’s got through this last round of chemo much better than the earlier ones. His sense of taste seems to have recovered sooner than usual – around 10 days after chemo – and he feels much more like himself. He needs the odd daytime snooze but he’s been busy in the garden and I’ve had to remind him that it’s only 10 days since chemo finished.
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