Break out the Bubbly!

And the envelope, please.

One of my earliest posts nearly a year ago was about the anxiety associated with all of the unopened envelopes that come with cancer treatment. Yesterday was another envelope day with Dr. Forman. I came out a big winner with a clean chest X-ray, PET scan and CT scan. I was especially relieved to hear that the troubling, pre-transplant "hot spot" in my colon area has disappeared.

What comes next? Next month I'll have my tether (aka Hickman catheter) removed and will start maintenance Rituxan. For the next two years, I'll go in to the City of Hope once every three months for the drug tune-up. And I'll continue to check in every two weeks to monitor my blood counts.

I was a little disappointed to see that my previously high-flying blood counts had simmered down a bit. The WBC fell from 7 (normal range) to 3.2 (low). The platelets also dropped by more than 50% from 90 to 42 (low normal is 150). I'll use the word that Dr. Forman used to describe my platelets: tentative.

But, in spite of the falling numbers, there's nothing tentative about the joy I feel from the good news in yesterday's envelopes. I can enjoy another six months (until I'm retested) without "envelope anxiety."