Merry Ester

I suppose. Sadly, the Nondenominational Rodent did not visit the adult wing of this hospital. He may have ventured into the Children's Hospital, but I can't say for sure. Regardless, a few of my nurse friends dropped off some candy for me, and one nurse even made me two sparkly, origami bunny heads. These bunnies, along with the white chocolate rabbit my doctor gave me, are sitting on my table, watching me type. If they could talk, I'm sure they would be saying something along the lines of, "Don't worry Caroline, things will get better soon." And the chocolate one from my doctor would be saying, "Hey, at least you're in remission," which is what my doctor told me yesterday. The reason they would be saying these somewhat reassuring trifles is that I am still in the hospital. My methotrexate levels have actually Increased since this morning. I do not know how that happens, only that it did and that it means I still can't go home. So I have officially taken the cliched "one step forward and two steps backwards." And now I am also not sure if I will get to go home tomorrow either. The other thing is that I officially became neutropenic last night, so my immune system is compromised to the extent that I have no mechanisms left to fight off infection. I have actually been on the verge of a fever all day. And, while I would like to attribute my current issues -stuffy nose, sore throat and cough- to allergies, I feel like I'm coming down with a head cold. So this is lame. The good news is that this will pass. My kidneys will eventually get back to their normal functioning, and my white blood cell count will rebound.

What this means for the immediate future, though, is that it is becoming less and less likely that I will be flying to Boston this coming Friday. Obviously, I am disappointed. But I can't be too upset. I knew there was a chance this would happen. It's just unfortunate that my body would choose now to react to the chemo when I have had relatively few negative reactions these past four months. Oh yeah. Today's the four-month anniversary of my diagnosis. Thank God, I'm almost halfway finished with all of this. But the health thing. I'm not angry. I don't want to waste the energy I still have on anger at something I have no control over. That's a new way of thinking for me, new since four months ago. But really, there is nothing I can do about this. I can only get through it. And I'm certainly not going to complain about still being here. Nor am I going to try and analyze every detail of this past week, in the hopes of finding something that I should have done differently. I can't do anything about the past. I've just got to move forward and pray that these silly setbacks are only temporary and that nothing more serious happens between now and September. Yup, that's about it. Peace.