Day +3//Blood Tests & TV

Just another day in quarantine!
I woke up to the sound of our doorbell/buzzer bright and early around 7am and it was the doctor here to take a blood sample. I was happy to learn that this was just a finger poke and not a bunch of vials of blood. As soon as she left the apartment I went right back to bed. It has been nearly impossible for me to get decent full nights sleep here. I fall asleep with ease but as soon as I get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night or early morning, I just cannot fall back to sleep. So I’m usually up around 4am and then not tired until I have to get out of bed. Typical!

I finally got out of bed around 9 so I would be awake when Dr. Lesly came for my shot and so Gaby and I could continue watching Stranger Things. I am a month ahead of myself and I thought season 2 came out today, but much to my surprise, it comes out October 27. C’est la vie…or should I say así es la vida 😉 We finished that today and then after a quick consultation at the clinic to review our blood results we started watching Friends from the start. That should last me a few days. Stranger Things was the 3rd TV series we’ve watched so I picked a long running show for our next marathon.

The consultation at the clinic was a quick one just to review that morning’s blood levels. They focus mainly on my neutrophil count waiting for it to drop down into severe neutropenia. As of this morning, my levels weren’t low yet but Dr. Elias suspects that I will be entering into neutropenia by the weekend. Our next blood test and consult is Friday so we will see how low I get by then. Reminder: Neutrophils protect us from bacterial infection and a low neutrophil count is called neutropenia.
While I’m not technically neutropenic yet, I still have to remain in my apartment and be very diligent in hand washing and sanitizing and constantly wiping down my laptop and cell phone with disinfecting wipes. I could slip into neutropenia at any given time so I’m not about to take any risks just because this morning my levels weren’t low yet.

It was so nice seeing the group while we were out today. Even if we were all masked up. This is such a fun group of people and I feel so honored to get to do this treatment along side of them. So many needed laughs and just good camaraderie. I would so love to do a reunion with this group in the next couple of years to see how we’ve all healed and carried on with our lives. I guess thats one amazing thing with technology these days. We’ll always have Facebook and emails to keep in touch. But really. These 5 patients and their caregivers are absolutely amazing people. I was afraid this would be a lonely month not having anyone with me from home but it has been quite the opposite. I’ve made some incredible life long friends here!

No puzzle update today because Gaby and the housekeeper had to move all of my organized pieces and put them away in order to sanitize the table this morning. That is why nobody finishes these puzzles!

In other exciting news….my head hair is falling out!! I can just lift it right off of my head and it comes right out. I’m going to miss my fuzzy little head though! This also ruins my plans on being Eleven from Stranger Things for halloween. Guess I’ll just be Caillou, the worlds most annoying 4 year old.

Eleven

Caillou

Head hair!