The latest numbers are in

Went to Conlon this afternoon. Vlad's numbers are very low again, but it's expected. His white count is 800, hemoglobin is 9.7 and his platelets are 18,000, which is extremely low. He's got to get a platelets transfusion on Thursday, and depending on his RBC count that day, he may need an RBC transfusion as well. This is all expected.

The only small surprise is Conlon said he expects Vlad will be out of the hospital more like 4 weeks than 3 weeks between chemo treatment #1 and chemo treatment #2, anyway. If it's all the treatments, well, multiplied by 4, then that means possibly an extra month of this fun. We shan't speak of it anymore. But at least this way we're pretty much assured of his being healthy enough to go to Fort Worth for Mother's Day weekend.

In the past couple of days, Vlad has started the decline toward nadir and he's not as peppy, his eyes look "sick" and his mouth is starting to get sore. He's rinsing orally with hydrogen peroxide as a preventative. Conlon said to refill the Levaquin antibiotic. That a $60-a-pop prescription. Last time he prescribed only 10 pills. $6 a pill. I hope it's worth it. Update: The $60 refill was for 7 pills!

The short-term disability people sent Vlad two checks and then stopped, saying they wanted more information to make sure this was not a pre-existing condition. I think the papers said, "Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West." We gathered all the papers and prodded doctors to fax their copies. Then Vlad called and annoyed a few people until the disability gatekeepers were satisfied with the quantity of paperwork. Now we're waiting on an analyst to approve the quality of the paperwork. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We've started pushing through the long-term disability paperwork. I'm just so thankful he's able to handle some of this stuff. I'd be in the loony bin if I had to do all of it. And I'm thankful we can handle this crisis financially by sacrificing only our big Hawaii 5-0 vacation. There's some prayers answered, lemme tell ya.

Anyhoo, I'm so behind at work it's laughable. But it'll work out somehow. In the meantime, I'm incapable of holding a thought for more than 15 seconds. I haven't had any Shiraz in about two weeks. Maybe that's my problem?