My Day Out

I've gotten a lot of questions about my day out, so I'll give you all a little bit of an update. I'm hoping to leave again today, and if the bone marrow biopsy comes back negative, I could be discharged completely from the hospital and remain an outpatient for the next few weeks. I still have the transplant ahead, but I'd like to just get out of here at this point.

Yesterday was good though. It involved a lot of walking with Kym. I had to wear a mask and gloves, because although my white counts are up in the normal range, I'm what's called "functionally neutropenic." This means the numbers are all good, but I just had chemo and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm still more susceptible to infection than most people. But we left the hospital and walked around the Harvard Medical Quad (at least that's what I'm calling it). Kym's friend picked us up and took us back to her apartment. We then walked to a sandwich shop, and then the local library. I'll be here for a year so it will be good to know where the library is. I'll feel like I'm back in college again. Just take away the drinking and add medical safeguards and it's pretty much the same. No football games for me though.

After the library, we walked back to her apartment and Bill came home. Bill made a tasty fish dinner. It was tasty and good. We watched a bit of TV and then I headed back to the hospital. All in all I walked about 2.5 miles yesterday. This may not sound like a lot, but I'm still anemic and being in a hospital for the past month has severely de-conditioned me. I was pretty beat by the end of the day.

It was a good day. Very nice to breathe the outside air, even if it was through a mask.