The other counts and the next 66 days

For the past five months my life has been controlled and steered by counts, I mean blood counts. Ranjan's! Before chemo, 6 days after chemo, 2 days before chemo and so on. The figures are staggering to say the least as they fall or increase at bewildering speed from 3 000 to 19 000 in a day,or from 14 000 to 2 800 in 2 days or from 145 to 400 and so on, depending on whether they are WBCs or platelets. One almost lives from blood test to blood test, heaving sighs of relief if all is well, or getting a bout of nerves if they are too low. In the early days it was a real stress but slowly one became accustomed as habit is indeed second nature. It is said that it takes 66 days to form a habit. The Canadian Magician Doug Henning once said ‘The hard must become habit.  The habit must become easy.  The easy must become beautiful.’ With chemo I agree on the first two.

For the past few days I have been feeling low. I finally made a trip of the doctor this morning and lo and behold found another set of counts to be address. My BP had fallen to 60/80. Well nI do normally have a low BP but when it dips this low it is always due to stress and worry. My good Doc P unravelled the puzzle for me. According to him and I cannot but agree, with chemo coming to an end in a month and one day to be exact, the comfort zone we had sunk into in spite of ourselves as chemo has been going on for more than 66 days is soon coming to an end. The elephant in the room is WHAT NEXT. Entering chemo zone was a first and kept me on my toes in more ways than one. But what comes after december 27th is unknown and even scary. The carefully crafted programme that kept me going 24/7 for the past months comes to an end and now it is time to get back to the drawing board and work out a new one to fill what now looks like a huge void. No wonder the counts were low.

I had a long chat with my dear Doc. Many things were said, some left unsaid. The elephant in the room was the question: will be be cured? But we did not address it directly. The conversation was about what was needed to be done after the last chemo and for the next 6 months when we would perhaps get the news we were waiting for.

I have a month to work out the next 6 months. We know that only Ranjan's immune system can bring the miracle we need. For the past 5 months his body has spun out of control under the assault of toxins of all kind and hue. His immune system must be in shock and will take time to get rid of the toxins. Then it will slowly get back in control and hopefully do the needful.

I guess it will take another 66 days post 27/12 to find a new comfort zone. Just hope the BP behaves.