Not Ready Yet

Ahh... another day off at the clinic. Although I was officially dismissed on the 5th, I have been still going into the clinic on a semi-regular basis since. There are three reasons why I haven't hightailed it out of there.

First, they are still trying to determine a proper regimen of water pills to get my edema to a managable level. Perhaps I'll be drafted as a float in Macy's Thanksgiving parade. However, my aspirations of floating across 42nd Street may be premature, as it seems like the edema has not grown in the last week and that this will eventually be taken care of.

Second, there's still the 'curiosity' of my high platlet and white blood cell counts. The platlets are inching back to normal, but my white blood cell counts are still very high (three times greater than average) and are still rising. The doctors suspect that I am suffering a severe allergic reaction to something, however what that something is we don't know. It could be from a complicated reaction to one of my medications, or as simple as the soap I'm using. Right now it's a process of elimination, and we're not going anywhere fast on this one.

Finally, they're still watching the pimples on my body for a shingles infection. It appears that the antiviral is clearing them up, but it's still too soon to tell. This scare is serving as a great wake-up call to exactly how defenseless my immune system is during the recovery period.

All of these things mean that I'll probably be making occasional visits to the clinic for the rest of the month. Although a few weeks ago I felt a little sad for leaving the place, I now feel like my time there is finished, and I'm ready to leave. However, I'm always thankful to have available such great doctors at my disposal while there are still serious issues with my recovery.