5/27 - 6/3

Things have been progressing nicely in the last week.

Since last Thursday I have been discharged from PT, told I didn't need to get my blood checked anymore, golfed 9 holes, played volleyball, and went swimming.

I saw my physical therapist on Thursday. He evaluated my balance and concluded that he wouldn't need to see me anymore unless I decided I needed to work on something. He's going to keep my file open for another 6 weeks but will close it out then unless I contact him.

As Melissa said last week, we got my Thursday blood results on Friday. My hemotologist thinks that my blood counts are showing a recovery and that I don't need to get my blood drawn twice a week. I'll just get it drawn once a month when I go back down to Indy for checkups.

Saturday morning, I drove up to Granger, IN to hang out with a bunch of friends. We typically would go to the Indy 500 but they made a good call and thought it would be better if we watched it from the comfort of air conditioning. On Saturday, we played 9 holes in the heat. First hole I hauled off and nailed my tee shot. I got all of it but when we got to it, I only hit it about 220 yards. It was a bit of a wakeup, I was trying to hit long irons all afternoon where I would typically hit a wedge or 9 iron. After we finished up, I had some trouble cooling down. I drank a bunch of ice water and took a cold shower but eventually just spending some time in the AC helped.

On Sunday, we met up with some more friends for the race. I'm sure it was far more enjoyable inside with the lights off drinking beer than out in the stands drinking water because friends at the race were calling saying how they were melting. After dinner, we went out and played some volleyball. This was my first time really trying to jump and move around quickly. I feel on my back nearly every time I jumped, it wasn't very graceful. After a few games, I went and jumped in the pool to cool down and relax a bit. That was short lived once the game of Marco Polo started. That was a lot of fun but a bit more challenging than when I was young and had hearing in both ears. Thanks to Tim for the help though, instead of saying "polo", he just splashed water at me.

After all of the excitement on Sunday, I nearly slept until noon. I woke up just in time for lunch and then hustled back down to Lafayette for a Memorial Day cookout that Melissa was putting on....that I forgot about.

I promise it won't be so long before my next update.

Eric

No More Weekly Blood Labs!

Hi Everyone,

I just heard back from Eric's nurse that his counts are rebounding nicely. His white blood cell count is 2000, Hemaglobin is 11.1, platelets are 228,000 and his neutrophils are 1100! For all purposes, they consider him recovered from his last round of chemo, and don't require him to get his blood drawn twice a week.

Happy Memorial Day to all!
Melissa

Blood Counts

Melissa and I made a trip up to the Chicago area last weekend and got to see a lot of the family. I'm feeling much stronger now but my energy is started to decrease again. On Saturday, I pushed myself too hard (as a lot of you saw) but it was nothing a quick trip to the ER couldn't solve. They checked me out and found that my blood counts had dropped significantly since I got them checked on Thursday. They're not quite as low as they were last time but they've dropped more quickly, although I started lower. Blood tests yesterday showed similar results. I'm not neutropenic but my white blood cells are low so I'm back to brushing my teeth 4 times a day with prescription mouth wash and using hand sanitizer all the time. I'm supposed to stay away from sick people and crowds which is going to be tricky this week because we're heading down to St. Louis for Melissa's brother's wedding.

I've also been talking to a few rheumatologists. When I was receiving my last round of chemo, they spent some time looking at me and thought that when I was sedated and wasn't' moving, my tendons may have attached to different parts of the bones in my hands causing them to lose range of motion. They assured me that the pain isn't hurting them so they said that I just need to break the connections. They said that if I do something and it hurts, keep doing it. If this doesn't work, a potential next step is to go in and snip the tendons where they are attached in the wrong places.

After this, another rheumatologist in Lafayette concluded that I may have gout since my uric acid levels are borderline too high. Our family doctor, however, says that since I'm on the larger side, higher uric acid levels are too be expected. She thinks that it is right in the normal range for someone my size and doesn't conclude I have gout.

Each doctor we see has a logical opinion but none of them seem to agree what is causing the pain. They do all agree that the pain won't cause further damage though.

Eric