Hurts So Good

I haven't written much because I've been in massive amounts of pain. I woke up yesterday certain that I had sciatica, that I'd pulled my back, and that perhaps I had a tumor at the base of my neck. I don't even know how to describe what I was (and currently am) feeling, but it is B, A, and D. I even consented to morphine every two hours, no request necessary.

It turns out when your bone marrow is growing that your bones actually hurt. And they hurt excruciatingly if it's growing at a very fast rate. Which means that I can therefore officially report that my white count has gone all Evel Kneivel, jumping over twelve buses, three trucks and two cars, surpassing any white count I've had in the past year. Admittedly, the huge count bump I've had is still half of a normal white count, but it's still double what I've had in recent memory.

As you can imagine, these are the days I've been simultaneously praying for and feeling too scared to admit it lest they not arrive. I've approached this whole thing with a "one day at a time" attitude, refusing to ponder questions that might arise two months from now. I know others have probably found my unwillingness to discuss some things annoying, but I just knew for my own sanity that I had to deal with today and then tomorrow, and then two months from now in two months. I've still got eleven months to go, which is a marathon. The only way it's going to work is if I continue to see today as the only day I need to get through. Especially because the very scary specter of Graft Versus Host Disease is still out there. I'm not cured--and life is not back to normal--until we know I don't have that. Which we won't know for another month or so. Which I can't worry about today.

Why?

Because my white count is growing exponentially, which means the transplant engrafted, which means my platelets will be back in a couple of months and my red count a couple of months after that. I want to experience this incredible joy for one day before I start pondering all the ways this ain't over yet, and potentially could still end in disaster.

I especially want to celebrate it because the past 16 days have been rough, and this is my payoff. I truly especially want to celebrate it because my body aches like a mofo to the level that I'm on narcotics (and actually barfed in the middle of writing this), but only because my brand new bone marrow is working overtime.

It definitely hurts so good.