24: More

Dr Finley just stopped by to see us. Great news and bummer news. The great news is that there is no infection in Pablo's blood and his hemoglobin is at 8.2 and rising. The bummer news is that the bump from yesterday's platelet transfusion wasn't huge (current level is 25,000), and his white blood count is still still zero. This means we're up in here for another 24. At least.

This is slightly tough news. Jo Ann and I thought we'd be home by noon. Just a reminder that we are in the block-and-tackle trenches of cancer treatment. We are living our lives by these tiny scientific metrics—blood counts, medicine doses, body weight, kidney function tests—and our plans and expectations are governed more by the sometimes good, sometimes disorderly behavior of microscopic bits of our little boy's system than by our whims and desires. And in a way, we're very lucky to be going through cancer treatment in 2008. Dr Finley was telling me about the 'dark days' before the digital age of science, and before white blood cell boosters like Neupogen. Sounds like doctors were flying without instruments back then.

I'm headed home for a shower and a change of clothes. Then Butch and I are gonna grab a coffee at Intelligentsia.

Pablo didn't want me to take pix of him this morning, so here are two random shots from our waking hours today:

My pasty white grille and the ubiquitous yellow grilles of the Pain Management Chart.

In rainbows: Pablo's Lucky Charms. To my tummy's delight, he doesn't like the rainbows....