Still Stuck, But Home

The original thinking, upon entering the hospital with a neutropenic fever two weeks ago, was that we would wait for the neutrophil count to get back to normal (1500), which the local doctors thought might take a week, and then I would go home.

As the first week went on with no real movement in the neutrophil count, the threshold for going home dropped to 1000, and then 500. And the counts kept wiggling along between 0 and 30.

For training, I was back to walking the corridors with my IV pole or riding the exercise bike they brought to my room. At first I was partial to the bike, because I could work harder, but the highest setting of the seat was still a little too low for me, making it uncomfortable.

Into the second week with no real movement in the counts, the expectations and the plan changed again. The plan became to finish my two-week course of intravenous antibiotics and go home as long as I felt fine, no matter what the neutrophil count. With the double burden of recent chemotherapy and an infection, it could take a long time for the neutrophils to come back even to 500, and I might as well do that recovery at home.

So I came home yesterday, with a neutrophil count of 50, and I'm back to the extra precautions in force when I was discharged after the transplant: check my temperature regularly, avoid people. My legs felt pretty dead this morning, despite all my walking and biking during my incarceration. I think it's just not the same. Also, I'm pretty low on hemoglobin.

But I'm home!