The neutropenia rollercoaster

We managed to convince ourselves we were surely going home together today in spite of almost 8 months of canceled plans and unpredictable days telling us to never get our hopes up. After two weeks of ANC = 0, good things have been brewing the past 4 or 5 days, but we were warned that it may not be a straight line up to where he can go home, and it hasn’t been. Yesterday, though, his ANC hit 150 and he really just needed a few more points to get to his release target – 200 technically, but the doctor indicated if he was still going in the right direction she’d probably let him go at 170ish. Just 20 more little neutrophils overnight didn’t seem like a big reach.

This morning the wait for his lab results seemed to take forever. Blood is taken at 4am, and around 9am we finally got the results. 130.

He’s ok, it’s not a bad sign. It’s perfectly expected – it’s not the first dip in this recovery – two steps forward, one step back… tomorrow they’ll probably be up again, maybe even enough to come home. But it meant me leaving the hospital again without my family, back home to an empty house.

Crushed.

I miss living under the same roof as these three. I know they miss being home. Privacy, home-cooked food, the cats and dog, the outside. Wes hasn’t seen the sky in nearly three weeks. He hasn’t been allowed to sleep through the night, run around freely, see his friends, feed the ducks, touch grass, play at the park, walk in the rain, or come downstairs early in the morning for a quiet hour with me. Stephanie has felt the sun for maybe 10 minutes so far this June. She’s barely slept in spite of the constant, imposed downtime. She’s been on alert instead, for Wes, for the constant disruptions, the never-ending parade of well meaning and important medical staff arriving unannounced and unpredictably 24 hours a day. Ruth, at least, knows no different.

Soon they’ll be home, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. We aren’t in control. Slaved now to those damned little neutrophils.