It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this beast; I’d better get on it or casual site visitors will assume I’m dead.
I’m planning on doing two posts in quick succession. This one will be a matter-of-fact update about where I’ve been and where I am, AML-wise. The second will be the beginnings of the next phase, which will involve pathetic cries for help.
I was finally discharged from UC Davis, after eight long weeks. After the first round of chemo, my blood counts did not rebound like they were supposed to. I went through several weeks of feeling more or less OK, but waiting and waiting for my neutraphils and regular white blood cells to recover and give me some semblance of an immune system so that I could go home. Another bone marrow biopsy showed that the disease was still present, so they gave me another round of chemo, this one a low intensity version. After that, I was discharged.
A few weeks later, I went back to Davis for—you guessed it—another bone marrow biopsy. This one was clean. So I made a quick meme in Photoshop to celebrate.
But like the historic event I’m referencing, there’s a dark cloud. I’m still a long ways from out of the woods.
I’ve been at home for a few months now, with frequent blood tests, occasional transfusions, and one more round of low-intensity chemo. I’ve even re-started one of my part-time jobs. I can walk for two or three miles on flat ground, but hills and lifting heavy things wipe me out.
But there’s only one route to a full recovery, and that’s a bone marrow transplant. The transplant involves a month or so in the hospital, and two or three months in house arrest near the hospital with a 24/7 caregiver. While Medi-Cal has covered, and will continue to cover, the major medical expenses; basic living expenses have wiped out my little nest egg while I’ve not been working, and the transplant and recovery opens a new Pandora’s box of out-of pocket expenses.