Day 12

Today's counts:

White blood cells: 0.1  (normal: 3.5-10.5, in billions/litre)

Hemoglobin: 85 (normal: 135-175, in grams/litre)

Platelets: <10  (normal: 150-450, in billions/litre)

Did you know hospital pharmacies stock beer and alcohol? Yeah, just in case they're treating an alcoholic for something and they need to avoid withdrawal. I'm hoping they mix up my meds one of these days and plug some whiskey into my IV.

I had the last of my post-transplant immunosuppressive chemo treatments yesterday. I hope that turns out to be the last chemo I'll ever need.

I'm getting daily transfusions of platelets as well as regular blood to bring up my hemoglobin levels (hemoglobin brings oxygen throughout your body, so a low count usually means one is tired and weak, which is indeed the case for me). Actually, apart from being incredibly tired and dealing with canker sores throughout my mouth and throat, I'm not doing too badly. And it seems my white blood cell count has increased from less than 0.1 billion per litre to exactly 0.1 billion per litre, so maybe my new immune system is settling in.

Now, I'm not normally one of those foodies that takes a pic of his meal and tweets it for the world. But I'll make an exception this one time to share with you some of the hospital's greatest hits from the past couple of weeks:

Classic Salisbury steak.

I think this was an egg once.

The raccoons that attack my compost every day wouldn't touch this horror.