Day + 7: The Boring Patient

If they say that the temples of the Earth are built upon the pillars of irony, then here's another block of stone for you.

Last night was another sleep-deprived night, between waking up from bathroom trips and dealing with a new nagging pain in my lower back and upper legs. All in all, I think that I got maybe 2 good hours of sleep the entire time. When the pain started yesterday afternoon, I had written it off to perhaps too much sitting in front of the laptop, and some awfully bad sitting posture. By this morning, the throbbing had been elevated from 'minor annoyance' to 'major pain in the ass'. It was very uncomfortable to sit up for any extended period.

With today's meeting with the doctor, I reported the pain, which they had identified immediately. You see, for the last week I have been getting daily shots of Neupogen (growth hormone) to stimulate my white blood counts, which had been very low over the last two days. These shots put your bone marrow into overdrive, causing your bones to explode with all types of new cells. In a healthy or young bone marrow, this literally causes the cells to pop out of the bone like popcorn in a heated paper bag. This causes a serious amount of bone pain as it does the job. That is, the tingling means that it is working!

Unfortunately, the tingling causes some pretty annoying bone pain, which really makes you moody and irritated. The result - the worst day of my treatment since my drug episode 8 days ago.

But of course, all of the news wasn't bad. I have officially exited the tailspin of my white blood cell counts. Today the counts rose from 0.3 to 0.6, as I had expected! But the bone pain, ouch.
However, due to the relatively easy predictability of my counts and symptoms, I was called a 'boring patient' by the overseeing doctor. Of course, this is a compliment -- the doctors love boring patients.

Next steps? I am scheduled to come into the hospital every morning for a growth hormone shot until my white blood count reaches 1.5. And until then, I'm sure to be doped up on the Tylenol.