In brief.

I don't have a whole lot to report, mostly just that I am still in the hospital. My chemo levels have showed a slight decrease since yesterday, so my doctors and I are optimistic about tomorrow. I will probably still have to stay here tomorrow, but I'll hopefully be out within the next few days. Otherwise, that's really it. My kidneys are doing better, my cold/allergies are still doing their thang, and my back is also getting better. So things are alright. I guess the only major negative thing is that, once again, my muscles are atrophying. I've been here for over a week now, and I have had very little physical activity. There is only so much one can do within the confines of their hospital room while constantly hooked up to an IV. While I enjoy watching America's Next Top Model, I don't really want to look like that. At least, I don't want to look like that by sitting on a hospital bed. So I am anxious to get back to healthy. The good news with this is that I know my strength will come back quickly. I'm proud of my resilience. Alright, happy hump day. Pax.

Yup.

I'm still here. My chemo levels have plateaued. My doctors think I'll be fine; now we're just waiting until my body decides to eradicate the chemo. So I'm keeping busy. Guitared a bit; I planned my schedule for next year; I've blown my nose a Lot. I also found out that the nurses talk about me. My night nurse came in and said, "Hi, I'm Joy. I'm excited; I finally get to be your nurse!" Apparently they all think I'm "so nice and polite." I try to be low-maintenance, I suppose. I feel bad because I know some of the patients here are pretty demanding. Nothing against them; if you're sick and need help, then by all means. And the nurses are so great. One of my nurses said today,"Oh, nothing phases us anymore." And really, they can handle just about anything. I could never do what they do. So props and a huge thanks to them.

And another update... I'm not going to Boston this weekend. Tear. My doctor was actually just in here, and we decided that it would be in my best interest not to travel. I completely agree with her not wanting me to fly halfway across the country. My body is currently struggling to get its (relative) health back. A weekend with my friends, as much fun as it would be, would probably set my recovery back. I'm disappointed, but like I said earlier, I am more concerned with staying on track to get back to school in the fall. That being said, I'd better see some pictures of Marathon Monday all you BU folk... Haha. Otherwise, I'm still thinking happy kidney thoughts. Sticking this out, and I can't wait to get home. Tha's all. Peace.

I wish I could say I was currently listening to Big Pimpin'. But I'm not.

No, instead, I am listening to Blues Traveler. I am still in the hospital, and I still have no definite idea of when they will be sending me home. But I am trying, as my nurse advised, to "think happy kidney cell thoughts." Come on, happy kidney cells! Do your regeneration thing! That's about it though. I feel better than I have the past few days. My back is becoming less painful, albeit slowly. But I haven't had any Tylenol in 24 hours, so progress is being made. Now I'm just waiting for these stupid chemo levels to go down.

In other news, I had another run-in today with someone who wasn't born in this country. And by run-in, I mean delightful encounter. A man stopped by my room this morning, a man with thick, wavy brown hair, a quirky little smile, and what I think was a Spanish accent. He said to me, "Caroline?" I looked up from my book at this strange man who knew my name and answered, "Yeah..." He then said to me (again, in his accent with slightly rolled r's), "Would you like to paint?" This man, this vision from another country, was offering me paints! I guess someone comes around to the cancer folk every once in a while with painting supplies. Occupational therapy, if you will. Anyway, needless to say, I accepted his offer to art. And art I did. He brought me acrylic paints in hot pink, neon green, sort of puke yellow, sky blue, and there was a purple in there as well. I commented that, "Wow, these are really bright," and he offered to bring me some more muted colors to mix. So he returned with white, black, a peach, and a color he called "ochre; all the famous paintings have it as their base." He also brought me another brush, in addition to the second-grade plastic-bristled one he had brought initially. Oh, and an orange colored pencil. And then his mysterious, arty, and foreign self left, never to be seen again. But I still have his day-glo orange pencil, although I did throw out the acrylic paints. The smell was starting to make me feel a little fuzzy. I also have the god-awful painting I drew. But it made me happy and was a nice distraction for a little while. So that was my day. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. Maybe a French man will come and bring me runny cheeses and wine. Oh God, that would be fantastic. If slightly fanciful. Otherwise, I'm off to dream of mysterious, dark, and accented men presenting me with Monets and glasses of Bordeaux-region reds. Splendid.

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.

At least I have a Fruit Roll-Up

Not a whole lot else is working out for me right now. I am still in the hospital, and I won't be going home until at least tomorrow. There is still a significant amount of methotrexate (the chemo drug) in my system, so I'm not allowed home yet. My kidneys are taking their sweet time in processing this drug. The two other times I've been in the hospital for this treatment, I cleared the drug by Thursday evening. But my doctors upped my dosage this week, which is causing all sorts of issues, not least least of which is that I'm still here. Because they increased the amount of chemo I was getting at one time, my kidneys pretty much went into overload. My doctor told me that my poor little kidneys couldn't process all of the methotrexate that was being pumped through them. Their going on overload caused some of the blood urea in my kidneys to crystallize, further slowing down all kidney processes. (I'm not exactly sure what blood urea is or does, but it's related to kidney functioning. It can also crystallize.) It's not a big deal that my kidneys are slightly compromised. I am 20, and this is something I will get over in the next few days. If I was 70, then we would have a problem on our hands. But I'm not, and instead, it's just an inconvenience.

I wish I could say I was taking this all nobly and with a maturity beyond my years, but really, I'm super pissed. First off, I am supposed to fly to Boston in six days. Six! If anything happens to me to where I can't go, I really don't know what I'll do with myself. As of now, I should still be discharged tomorrow, and there is no reason why I won't be flying to Boston. But really, you never know... And the other thing is that --feel free to insert judgment here-- I was supposed to go on a date tonight. Okay, maybe not a date necessarily, but I met someone at a concert last week, he called me back on Wednesday, and we were supposed to hang out tonight. And clearly, I can't do that now. He actually just called me, and I had to tell him I'm sick and can't meet up. I suppose technically I am sick, but I'm not lying in bed at home with a violent cold. Bah. Haha, and here I was, all excited about finally meeting some people my age around here. Hopefully we'll meet up sometime later in the week when I'm feeling (ahem) better. Other than that, everything is going alright. My back is very slowly getting better. But it is also taking its sweet time in healing. Again, oh well. These are all things I really have no control over. I just have to sit back and wait. Eventually I'll be okay again. And in Six Days I'll be in Boston! Woo! Peace.

What a Good Friday.

For those of you who aren't Catholic or just don't care, today is Good Friday, i.e., the day on which Jesus dies. I missed His birthday because I was in the hospital, and now I'm missing His funeral as well. Hopefully, though, I won't miss His resurrection on Sunday. (Disclaimer: I am really not that good a Catholic; I just think it's mildly amusing that I have been hospitalized on all the major Catholic holidays this year.) I also gave up chocolate for Lent, so on Sunday I will be able, once again, to nibble the ears off all the unhappy little chocolate bunnies hopping around. They have no idea what is coming.

In other news, not much has really been happening here. I am still in the hospital. My current life isn't exactly rife with excitement. As of right now, I am not sure if I will be released today, but I'm hoping I will be. Yesterday, I literally lay in bed all day. My back. Has been. Destroyed. I don't know why, but for some reason, this most recent lumbar puncture has caused my back to cramp up. Your back is another one of those things you don't realize how dependent you are on it until it becomes incapacitated. It has become difficult for me to sit without any support because it hurts too much to try and hold myself up. I hate that I'm always lying down when the nurses come in. I'm sure they get tired of seeing sick people lying in bed all day, but at this point it's hard not to. Oh well. The only thing to do is just stick it out, I suppose. The cramps should go away soon. Other than that, there were no cancer cells in my spinal fluid, which is always good. Everything seems to be on track and going well. So now let's just get me home! Woo!

Let's start with the bad news, shall we?

As I look outside my window this afternoon, typing this up, I can see quite clearly that it is snowing. And apparently, it is rather chilly out as well. May I remind you that it is also April 4th? What happened to the eighty-degree temperatures of one week ago? Sigh. Oh Spring, you fickle, fickle season.

In slightly more relevant bad news, I have pretty much been a bum for the past two days. Yesterday morning I was given an anti-nausea medication that basically knocks you out. I didn't want to take it, but nurse Anna assured me, "No, no, this medicine does nothing to you. You'll be fine." And I'm not so keen on arguing with that woman. Needless to say, I slept the whole day, with frequent interruptions by various doctors and nurses. Yesterday was also the day I had my lumbar puncture. Which leads us to my final bit of bad news: my back hurts like HELL. And really, I can think of no other way to put it. I guess the pain is a result of muscle spasms, which for some reason are brought on by the LP. The nurses offered to give me some pain meds last night, but I have a very strong aversion to pills I absolutely don't need to take. I also thought that I could just sleep off the cramps. Sadly, I did not sleep off the cramps. I did, however, get a hot pack this morning, which helped immensely. So thank God for hot packs.

And for the good news! I told my doctor a few weeks ago that I would really like to be able to return to Boston in the fall for school. She told me she would have to talk to her "people" and get back to me. So on Monday, she got back to me. I was initially thinking that I would just be transferred back to the BU Medical Center. My doctor told me, however, that BUMC isn't a member of this national group of hospitals that are part of the study that I am in. She did say that the Dana Farber Cancer Institute is a member of the group. She also told me that the woman who heads my study works here at UofC, and that one of this woman's good friends is a principal physician in the hematology/oncology ward at Dana Farber. So basically, because people have connections and my doctor is super awesome, I am pretty much all set to be transferred to Dana Farber in the fall, arriving in Boston at least a few days before classes start. Woo hoo! This makes life so much easier, because I even have a doctor lined up. Also, I mean, you really can't go wrong with the teaching affiliate for Harvard University Medical School. So in exactly five months from today, classes will be starting at Boston University, and I will be one of the students attending them. And that's about it for now. I'll probably go back to sleep relatively soon, get my energy back and all that whatnot. But good things to look forward to in the future. Happy Hump Day!