November 7, 2003

Dr. Reid, my oncologist told me that the blood cultures they took Wed. came back indicating I have: Gram positive cocci. (pronounced “cock-eye” )Basically, I have a bacterial infection. Because of this, I now must endure 14 days of treatment instead of 10. This means, I will NOT be able to go out of town next weekend for the Sweet Adeline Regional Fall FEST meeting in Winston-Salem NC. That’s two regional meetings I’ve missed now, due to my illness. I was really looking forward to going and seeing everyone. I had just told many of them I’d see them too. Now I’ll have to email everyone and tell them I’m not coming. Oh well! I guess this will be the year of no regional meetings!

November 8, 2003

I love driving to Fairfax (40 mile trip) on the weekend for my treatment!!!! NOT!!!! I have to come back tomorrow too. Are we having fun yet? Within a minute of the administration of the Benadryl…off I went to la-la land!!!

November 11, 2003

Day 7. They drew another blood sample to see if I’m still infected. They checked my blood counts because after all, it’s Tuesday! My WBC is 4.6 – that’s good. And the granulocytes are at 3.1, well within range. My red counts however, are down. The hematocrit portion of the RBC has normally been fine, but today it dropped below the magic number of 32. Today it’s 29.3. They gave me a shot of Aranesp, to help boost my red count. Can’t wait to see what this costs!