Hockey, Underpants, Rashes and Hair

Monday
Day 25 in the hospital
Day 13 post chemo

Weekends are probably the hardest for me around here. Zach is much busier with the boys so I don't see him as often. Thankfully this weekend I felt great and had energy, so I had other visitors come by to chat and keep me company.

The boys got to do some pretty fun stuff this weekend. Holden had his hockey practice at the Pepsi Center just like the Avs!! And Ollie (all three actually) got to meet his very favorite author Dav Pilkey. If you don't know, Dav writes the Captain Underpants and Dog Man series. The goofiest books ever, but man, it gets kids excited to read. Zach also said Dav had a super cool story. Zach sends me little insta videos and pictures throughout the day so I can see all the fun they are having. 

Holden, our future Av, this boy loves hockey and always has. This is a dream for him to be able to get out on the ice the pros play on in all his gear. 

These boys love Dav Pilkey books. Oliver especially. He reads all of them. When I saw that Dav was going to be doing an event in Denver, I knew I had to get tickets for us. Oliver, especially, but all of them were excited to go. Zach said, Dav did a talk that was super inspiring and awesome. I hope every kid gets to do something like this.

They say I'll get out of here soon. They say my numbers look good. They are trending up. They say I'll be home soon. 

We're waiting for my neutrophils to hit the 500 mark. Yesterday I was at 10. 

My hospital has tablets they give patients so they can stay updated on all of the blood work/ meds/ etc... They also have Facebook and some games on it too, I'm guessing most patients use it for the games, but I love having immediate access to my blood work. I don't have to wait for a doctor to get in here and let me know what my results were, if I need transfusions, etc... I can just figure all of that on my own. 

I just got all my numbers from this mornings blood work (YES, they take blood every single day!). 

My platelets are going up, I'm at 72. That's good. It seems to be jumping. Yesterday I was at 37. I need transfusions at 15, so I'm doing really good there.

My hemoglobin went down to 7.1. It's been creeping downward just a tad each day since my transfusion last Tuesday. If it falls below 7, I have to get a transfusion. I'm not sure if they'll let me go home with this trend down. But, I may be able to do blood transfusions out-patient. I guess we'll see.

My neutrophils. This is the number we've been focusing on for the last couple days after I got out of needing transfusions. Today I hit 90. NINETY! Ninety is huge for me. I've been wavering between 0-10 for weeks. 

I really might be going home soon!

When I went to the ICU last weekend they put me on some crazy strong IV antibiotics (just in case). Since then, my blood cultures and everything else have come back fine, so they took me off one. Infectious disease swapped out one antibiotic for another and I immediately got hives on my face. They said that was odd, since the antibiotics were in the same class, but regardless, swapped me back to the original. After the switched me back, I noticed I was getting rashes. So, after my 4pm IV last night, when I got a crazy rash all over my body and it was itchy, they decided to nix the midnight dose. I guess we'll see what the doc says today. I'm hoping I can just get off of the IV antibiotics all together. I feel so pumped full anti-everythings, I just can't imagine that's good for my system. It takes a year to heal your gut from antibiotics, right? YIKES! When my immune system is back up and normal, I'll be drinking lots of kombucha. 

Hair all over my sheets and pillow case. 

So much hair all over the floor.

Super shedding. It's everywhere.

So, when do you just cut your losses and just shave it all off? It's driving me crazy. There is hair everywhere. I thought I shed bad before, this is insane. Piles of hair on the floor. My neck and back get all itchy from the strands that fall and stick to me. But, you can't really tell, if you look at me. It still looks like I have a full head of hair. I'm not sure where it's all coming from. But, it doesn't look patchy at all. 

I'm not scared to shave my head. I'm a little excited about it. I'm feeling very confident in my head shape. 😂😂😂 Sometimes it gets emotional. When I'm running my hands through my hair and so much of it comes out. I've shed a few tears, I won't lie. But, overall I really am good with losing my hair. I never really loved my hair. Maybe it will grow back thicker! Maybe it will grow back with less white hairs! WOW, I never knew I had so many white hairs until all of it started falling out. 😁

Will update again soon.
Love & Light.
😷😘 michelle