Go Neutrophils! And a pair of sunglasses and a pancake pan

Yesterday my neutrophils were… I tell you what let’s have a look at all my most important-est blood counts

Haemoglobin – Friday 10.7 / Monday 10.2

Platelets – Friday 159 / Monday 114  (and if anyone can tell me how to tab on wordpress I would be very grateful)

White Blood Count – Friday 1.9 / Monday 1.0

Neutrophils – Friday 0.9 / Monday 0.4

At 0.9 it’s just 0.1 away from being in the non neutropenic category completely and 0.5 above severely neutropenic which meant we could go out for lunch.  We went back to the Mexican that we’d abandoned last time in search of a Chinese that didn’t exist.  I had BBQ ribs and they were good.  B had his usual Cajun chicken.  Having the ribs made me realise there are two sets of people in the world (presumably or it could be a quaint English/British thing) those that will eat messy food in public and those who won’t.  I have friends who won’t go near spaghetti bolognese in public.

As we have established I don’t eat that much meat so am no regular to chowing down on ribs in a restaurant with my sleeves rolled up, BBQ sauce up my nose, enough paper napkins to wallpaper our lounge and an inappropriately small finger bowl, however when the ribs called out to me from the me’n’u like yesterday I didn’t think ‘No, that would be awkward to eat and potentially embarrassing I won’t get it.’ I thought ‘Mmmmm, ribs.’ with a slight amount of drooling.  That said I was kinda glad the restaurant wasn’t packed when I had to do a furtive check to see if I had sauce on my left boob – well, not my actual…oh, you know what I mean, the dress material over said area.

And then I got a migraine, which did buy me a much needed pair of sunglasses. It was a lovely BRIGHT day (very warm in the sun, very cool in the shade) and that much have triggered a fairly, oh who am I kidding, it was a bit of a stinker of a headache.  When we got home (I didn’t feel up to knitting on the way back) I took 1g paracetamol and 60mg of codeine, double the amount I now take for bone pain, and it did ease quite a bit, enough that I could read during a relaxing bath.  Although relaxing in the bath takes on a whole new concept when you have a PICC line in your upper arm that needs to stay dry.

I’m pretty sure it was light triggered as when I tried to use the computer later it started up again and I had to request lamps on in the lounge rather than the ‘big light’.  I took the same dose of painkillers then and again this morning so it’s down to a tolerable background looming round my right eye.

I’m now off to give B another nudge as he’s getting out of bed at 9:00 (currently 9:56) and I’m going to make pancakes on my new pancake pan – also bought by the migraine which just wanted to get the pan and go home.  We both waited with bated breath when I said to B whilst in the queue ‘Is there anywhere else you want to go?’ knowing there was a 99% chance there wasn’t but neither the migraine or me wanted to look like a killjoy.

I just realised that the only two ailments I have have the sound ‘my’* at the beginning maybe I should make enquiries about any others just in case.

*And yes I know some people pronounce migraine as ‘megrain’ but even so it’s still all about me!

 

 

 

You be Pluto and I’ll be Goofy

And apparently I am goofy according to B and I was only referring to who got which cup of tea.  In case you were wondering Mickey and Donald were in the dishwasher.

Other Kilgallon household news

I’m now classed as severely neutropenic with a level of 0.4 and therefore wasn’t able to eat the cherry tomatoes I’d included with my packed lunch today.  It also meant I wasn’t able to have Velcade today either.  We’re seeing if my levels go up on their own and my next visit is for a clinic appointment this Friday.

I wondered if my folliculitis (infected hair follicle), which has cleared up completely, and/or floxacillin may have affected my neutrophil levels and it turns out that penicillin can cause a decrease in them.  I’ve written it down in my myeloma notebook  so I remember to ask about it at the clinic.

Along with the bacteria avoiding diet gardening is a no-no because do you know, and I know some of you do, just how much bacteria is in the soil – any excuse to knit instead of gardening.

I have two sore fingers and a sore thumb from sewing up lots of ORANGE knitting.  Obviously now I’ll have to keep a careful eye on these in case they swell up and go funny/manky!  How embarrassing would a knitting related infection be.

The toilet has been blocked since Saturday despite B making a squillion trips up and down stairs with a kettle of boiling water on Saturday afternoon – actually the boiling water was just making the up trip via the stairs and going down a whole or even, hole, other way.  The blockage has also persisted despite two lots of caustic soda going down the pan too.

A plumber came out today and said that his remit goes as far as the ‘toilet area’ and not the drains as they don’t have the right equipment (ahem!) so we needed a drainage contractor.

A drainage contractor is calling out in the morning at which time I will need a stiff drink if he gets it sorted easily and a completely rigid one if it gets complicated.  I am unsure whether the guy at the drainage company appreciated me saying that he should have asked me whether I was sitting down before running their prices past me.

We have been granted use of a neighbour’s toilet and it’s not like we don’t have a second toilet, well it’s more of a facility really, okay, okay it’s a bucket in the garage.