Day 10 - Go Aggies!

Well, well, well, I do believe I am engrafting.

My white count was up to 0.4 yesterday. That's not a big number, but off the floor enough to be noticeable. Then yesterday afternoon, my back began to hurt - the proverbial bone pain kind of hurt. It continued to kill me through the night, requiring a little "happy juice." Then this morning the white blood count (WBC) was 1.8.

The doctor said yesterday that if the count was up to 1.5 today I just might get out of here by Thanksgiving. So I will be negotiating to that end today when he makes his rounds. The absolute neutrophil count has to be 1.5 and you have to be stable in all other areas before they discharge you from the hospital, so I still have a way to go. The neutrophil count will settle out to be about 50% of the overall white count. So I'm looking for my WBC to rise to 3 or better to punch my get out of jail free card.

My donor is an Aggie, if you didn't get that headline.