Going home!

I saw Dr. Camacho this morning and he has banished me to my home. My fever went down with a little help from Ibuprofen and my blood work came in in its’ continuing downward trend. My white cells were 98,000 on Monday and they are 45,300 today, only 4 days later. Dr. Camacho said that the chemo should continue to bring them down for the next three weeks. I am to get weekly blood tests and make an appointment at City of Hope as soon as possible.

I will begin taking a drug called Sprycel on Saturday morning. I have received a 1 week supply from Bristol-Myers Squibb and have papers to request continued assistance from them, with me. The nurses call Sprycel the chemo drug and the doctors say that it is not chemo. What I do know is that the bottles’ label says that it is “Hazardous, Toxic Waste.”  I will be doing more research once I get home.

Because we have two cars here in the desert, I will follow Joe home. It’s hard to believe that I haven’t driven a car in almost two weeks. I am anxious to get on the road, but am feeling pretty crummy. After about an hour, I am so nauseous that I call Joe and we pull over. I am a bit shaky and weak but after taking a meclizine and walking around in the fresh air, I am ready to continue the journey. The rest of the drive seems very long, but at least we did not have to stop again.

Finally, we pull up to the house. We were very fortunate that it had rained like crazy while we were gone, because the flowers in the front yard looked amazing! The garden in the back had grown like crazy and the very sight of the inside of the house made me cry. It seemed as though a lifetime had gone by since I was home, and I was so glad to be there. It is funny how just being able to view familiar things through your eyes can make you feel so good all over. It was like I could not soak up enough images to fill all of the empty holes that had been bore into my soul. I had returned home differently than I had left. I wasn’t exactly sure just how much my life would change, but I was sure that now that I was home, that I would find out.

Home will allow me to contemplate, accept and believe that I now have leukemia. It will allow me to finally visit, explore and fully digest this change in my life and to begin the healing and managing process. I feel as though I can now research and educate myself about this blood cancer that I really know little about. I need to become well informed and have a clear understanding of what it is that I have, what my choices are and how it will affect my life and my body. There are many unanswered questions and many unknown fears. Home is the perfect place to explore all of these, but for right now, I am just looking forward to sleeping in my own bed! It is wonderful to be home!