Consolidation Week 2

I've spent this week mostly at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance clinic getting platelets, getting bone-marrow-stimulating shots, checking blood counts, and getting the daily chemo through the Ommaya. I even forgot about the Peg-L-asparaginase on Monday. Luckily, no side-effects to report from the Peg-L. My blood counts plummeted as predicted from the cytarabine, pushing me into the neutropenic zone (sub-500 neutrophils) for the first time a few years, and also lowering my platelets. But we were able to keep the platelet count safe with the combination of infusions and the growth factor. We're also trying IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin) therapy to see if it will raise my platelet count. IVIG is pretty cool in that it's a bag of pooled anti-bodies taken from the plasma of thousands of donors. IVIG is used to give some people makeshift "immune systems", who can't make their own antibodies, but its also used to calm down auto-immune disorders like my platelet auto-immune issue. I wouldn't mind if it did a little extra work on this cold I still have.  Unfortunately, the IVIG takes forever to infuse--right at 8 hours yesterday-- but my Dad has been keeping me company and Briana came to the rescue last night, bringing sandwiches. We settled in for the evening in the infusion room, and watched the Seahawks.  Today, I hope to get out of here by 9:30, in time to ride with Louis to pick up Petey from the airport. It's not looking good though since we haven't event started the IVIG yet and its 3:00 pm.  Hopefully this weekend will be end of my nadir and my counts today will improve by Monday,  Thank you to everyone who has gotten their flu shots, donated plasma, and donated platelets!