Despite the increase in platelets, the klinik still wants to wait a few more days before starting cycle two of chemo. Dr Kopic has said that he believes that my marrow is in an 'important recovery stage' and he does not want to risk damaging it. I can understand that, if we wipe it out completely it could kill me.
So I'm going to stay a few more days here at the hotel and drink as much Goji as I can.
It will be interesting to see if the counts shoot up or not.
Oh well... looks like the roller-coaster ride continues..
Friday, September 12, 2008
Eighty Nine!!. Now the wait to confirm
I just got back from having a blood test. Platelet count 89. That's an excellant count for me and pretty much normal. I've done my best to convince Dr D that we should go ahead, he now has to convince Dr K, who is away on holiday. I'm expecting a phone call in a couple of hours to either confirm or delay. Fingers still crossed.. However.... 89!!!!! YAY!!!! (Oh, and the Goji has arrived too)
While you were sleeping..
It's a topsy, turvey, surreal world I'm living in. While you sleep, my day unfolds. I write about it and retire to bed just as you are starting your working day. When I wake and have breakfast, you are probably eating your evening meal. It's in those precious few hours that follow that I can connect with real people back home before they go to sleep and the cycle continues.
.jpg)
While you were sleeping last night I spent part of my day going for a long walk through farmland that surrounds Bad Heilbrunn. On one of the many bus trips I have made to Bad Tolz I spotted an old run-down barn in a paddock, and wanted to photograph it. I hiked out towards where I remember seeing it. I also took a few 'shortcuts' that I came across. One was a horse trekking path that lead to a small village. From there I made my way to the main road and followed the cycle path that runs beside the highway until I came across the paddock with the barn.
Here is one of the pictures I took of it.
.jpg)
The walk there took nearly and hour, so I figured the return hike would be about the same.
There was a walking track that lead away from the barn in the general direction of home, so I thought I'd be adventurous and take that path back. It lead me through huge open fields, past farmers shed and barns, paddocks of cows that were laying down, resting in the deep soft grass. I walked through a small wooded area, down into a ravine, across a wooden bridge and out onto a road.
At the end of that road, not 100meters from where I stood, was my hotel. The time taken to return was only thirty minutes. I just can't rave enough about the vast network of walking tracks that criss-cross the entire region. No wonder everyone here looks so fit and healthy! (except those smokers at the Fachklinik, they only just make it across the road to the park!)
As I'm writing this, my room is being constantly lit up by lightning and the roar of thunder has not stopped for the last hour. A brief summer storm has been rolling past. Today the temperature was 24C, overnight it will be 10C. Monday was 12C during the day and Saturday was 32C. The forecast for this weekend is 7C during the day and 1C overnight. Have you ever heard of a place with such wild swings in temperature? It's bizarre.
9pm: I've just had a phone call from Dr Drasynki. He said he has spoken to Dr Kopic and they are concerned about starting chemo tomorrow with a platelet count under 100. He thinks they might have to postpone until next week when the Neumega arrives. I've explained to him that my platelet count normally varies between 60 and 100, and that it's only been 120 a couple of times in the last three years. We could be waiting a very long time. I've suggested I come in tomorrow for a blood test. Here's hoping for something close to 80. I'll be comfortable with that and push for a start. Less than that and I don't think I'll take the risk, I'm sure they wouldn't either.
It does take a few days for the counts to drop after chemo, but it would be a gamble to assume the Neumega is coming, because lets face it.. it's probably not going to arrive. Neumega injections should be started within 24 hours after the completion of chemotherapy and continued until a platelet count of 50 is achieved post nadir. It's so typical.. even the Goji juice I ordered from France hasn't arrived yet. During last years ABVD chemo it kept my count over 50 for almost the entire time. I really don't want to have to extend my stay here any longer then the 29th, when I'm booked to fly home.
Shall update you all tomorrow... fingers crossed for a count above 80!
..Ron
Twenty Two!!
Did I mention that Dr Glonti took twenty two vials of blood out of me on Tuesday? I can't believe I forgot to mention that! Twenty two! That's got to be some sort of record, surely!
The man's obviously obsessed.. He tried to tell me it was so they can make a new batch of dendritic cell vaccine, but I have my doubt's... I think in his secret underground laboratory he's putting together a clone.. of this I'm sure. Heck with twenty two vials of my blood he could be putting together two entire cricket teams for all I know!. Hmm.. maybe I could umpire? ..would give me something to do between blogs. The loss of all that blood doesn't seem to have affected my mental faculties in any way that I can tell, so I should be up to the job. I'll ask him tomorrow.
The man's obviously obsessed.. He tried to tell me it was so they can make a new batch of dendritic cell vaccine, but I have my doubt's... I think in his secret underground laboratory he's putting together a clone.. of this I'm sure. Heck with twenty two vials of my blood he could be putting together two entire cricket teams for all I know!. Hmm.. maybe I could umpire? ..would give me something to do between blogs. The loss of all that blood doesn't seem to have affected my mental faculties in any way that I can tell, so I should be up to the job. I'll ask him tomorrow.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Black holes and Icecream.
Well, I made it through the night just fine despite the doctor's concerns.
Other than a bit of a fever and a continous night sweat, I actualy felt pretty good. Certainly no need for a stay in hospital that's for sure.
I had a quiet, relaxing day. I popped down to Bad Tolz again, this time to purchase a Bluetooth USB adaptor for my laptop. It was quite a long walk across town to the computer shop, but well worth it for the exercise and the scenery. Once at the shop I asked the lady if she spoke English. "No" was the reply. Bugger! Oh well , I know for a fact that even in Germany a 'Bluetooth USB adaptor' is called just that. So I asked for one. She replied "no" and tried to give me directions to a mobile phone shop. I resisted and asked if it was OK to look around. The first shelf I came to was stacked with the very same item that I required. I took it to the counter, pointed to the label and read it out to her 'Bluetooth USB adaptor'. She again tried to argue with me in what I choose to call 'Germish'. That's 90% German and 10% English. ('Genglish' on the other hand, is anything that I can eventually understand). I ignored her and gave her the money. Very glad that I didn't take her word for it and have to walk all that way back across town empty handed.
Dinner provided me with a variation of the same scenario. I went to Il Tegaminos again, and while waiting for my pasta to arrive I couldn't help but smile at the irony of sitting in a large restaurant full of people chatting away in German, while the radio played a continuous stream of English pop songs. And there I was, probably the only person in the whole place that could understand them!
After watching a couple of young ladies devour their chocolate sundaes, I decided I'd order one for myself. The service was quite slow, and after sitting and observing almost every single person there, I eventually got bored and starting thinking about all the current hype over the safety of the Large Hadron Collider. ..and how some people think that it's going to create a black hole and the world will be devoured in the blink of an eye.
Now I don't know a lot about particle accelerators, God particles and the like. But I do have a fairly good grasp on common sense. Take the Y2K fiasco, people were saying that the world would grind to a halt, planes would fall from the skies and all our computer systems would crash.
I pointed out that computers had no concept of time other than what we entered into them. All anyone needed to do prior to the big day was boot up the computer, change the system date to just before midnight 31/12/99 and watch for system errors. They could then rectify them before the day arrived. I have a feeling every IT person on the planet knew this... but hey.. there was lots of money to be made.
It's the same with this Black Hole baloney. There's good money to be made by the media in scaring the hell out of everyone by telling them the world is going to end.. yet again.
OK, This is what my unqualified common sense told me as I sat waiting for my chocolate sundae to arrive.
Firstly particles collide in our atmosphere all the time (I read this somewhere) they don't create black holes and if they did they would decay very quickly and harmlessly. They are just too small to have any affect on anything. If you think about the sort of black holes that we see in the movies, these have enormous mass for their size, their gravitational pull is such that nothing can escape.. not even light. Hence the name 'Black Hole'. These are usually created when a star collapses.
OK lets shrink things down a little.. so lets just assume for a minute that the LHC produced a micro sized black hole. It would have less gravitational pull than a single grain of sand. How on earth is that going to be strong enough to suck the entire planet in on itself ! and even if it did somehow manage to do that, and the entire planet was pulled down to the size of a basketball it would still only have the gravitational pull of the original earth. Still not enough to pull a satellite out of orbit or the moon towards us. (yeah I'm ignoring centrifugal forces just for a minute! OK). So where's all that energy supposed to come from? It just doesn't stack up.
So there.. My theory, completely uneducated, on why we will not all die in the coming months from being devoured by a black hole. Sure beats talking about cornflakes! :)
..Night ..Ron
Other than a bit of a fever and a continous night sweat, I actualy felt pretty good. Certainly no need for a stay in hospital that's for sure.
I had a quiet, relaxing day. I popped down to Bad Tolz again, this time to purchase a Bluetooth USB adaptor for my laptop. It was quite a long walk across town to the computer shop, but well worth it for the exercise and the scenery. Once at the shop I asked the lady if she spoke English. "No" was the reply. Bugger! Oh well , I know for a fact that even in Germany a 'Bluetooth USB adaptor' is called just that. So I asked for one. She replied "no" and tried to give me directions to a mobile phone shop. I resisted and asked if it was OK to look around. The first shelf I came to was stacked with the very same item that I required. I took it to the counter, pointed to the label and read it out to her 'Bluetooth USB adaptor'. She again tried to argue with me in what I choose to call 'Germish'. That's 90% German and 10% English. ('Genglish' on the other hand, is anything that I can eventually understand). I ignored her and gave her the money. Very glad that I didn't take her word for it and have to walk all that way back across town empty handed.
Dinner provided me with a variation of the same scenario. I went to Il Tegaminos again, and while waiting for my pasta to arrive I couldn't help but smile at the irony of sitting in a large restaurant full of people chatting away in German, while the radio played a continuous stream of English pop songs. And there I was, probably the only person in the whole place that could understand them!
After watching a couple of young ladies devour their chocolate sundaes, I decided I'd order one for myself. The service was quite slow, and after sitting and observing almost every single person there, I eventually got bored and starting thinking about all the current hype over the safety of the Large Hadron Collider. ..and how some people think that it's going to create a black hole and the world will be devoured in the blink of an eye.
Now I don't know a lot about particle accelerators, God particles and the like. But I do have a fairly good grasp on common sense. Take the Y2K fiasco, people were saying that the world would grind to a halt, planes would fall from the skies and all our computer systems would crash.
I pointed out that computers had no concept of time other than what we entered into them. All anyone needed to do prior to the big day was boot up the computer, change the system date to just before midnight 31/12/99 and watch for system errors. They could then rectify them before the day arrived. I have a feeling every IT person on the planet knew this... but hey.. there was lots of money to be made.
It's the same with this Black Hole baloney. There's good money to be made by the media in scaring the hell out of everyone by telling them the world is going to end.. yet again.
OK, This is what my unqualified common sense told me as I sat waiting for my chocolate sundae to arrive.
Firstly particles collide in our atmosphere all the time (I read this somewhere) they don't create black holes and if they did they would decay very quickly and harmlessly. They are just too small to have any affect on anything. If you think about the sort of black holes that we see in the movies, these have enormous mass for their size, their gravitational pull is such that nothing can escape.. not even light. Hence the name 'Black Hole'. These are usually created when a star collapses.
OK lets shrink things down a little.. so lets just assume for a minute that the LHC produced a micro sized black hole. It would have less gravitational pull than a single grain of sand. How on earth is that going to be strong enough to suck the entire planet in on itself ! and even if it did somehow manage to do that, and the entire planet was pulled down to the size of a basketball it would still only have the gravitational pull of the original earth. Still not enough to pull a satellite out of orbit or the moon towards us. (yeah I'm ignoring centrifugal forces just for a minute! OK). So where's all that energy supposed to come from? It just doesn't stack up.
So there.. My theory, completely uneducated, on why we will not all die in the coming months from being devoured by a black hole. Sure beats talking about cornflakes! :)
..Night ..Ron
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)