Icicyles and Snowdrifts

            The snow has stopped here in Lexington. Our acre lot is a dramatic landscape of huge icicles, peaked, windswept drifts, low-lying tree trunks deep in snow, and circular wells carved out around other trees. The red of Sam’s Ford is completely gone on three sides; the North Wind has blown away some of the snow on the garden side.

            David continues to look good. He’s got a beard worthy of a mountain man and was able to visit Manhattan last weekend.

            His counts look good: the white blood cell count has stayed below 4 for 9 days, down from 9.13. The blast percentage is 42%, not great: normal is below 5%. He had a transfusion of red blood cells Friday, but doesn’t have to return to Cox 1 until Wednesday this week.

            For an hour a day, from 28 January to 1 February, David had his third course of five decitabine infusions. We hope the low WBC counts are at least partially caused by the decitabine. (The hydroxyurea certainly accounts for at least some of the dip.)

At the end of this 28 day cycle (5 days of decitabine, 23 days off), the nurse practitioner will do yet another bone marrow biopsy, to see whether the decitabine is attacking the leukemic blasts in the bone marrow itself. The marrow is the leukemia factory; we’re hoping the decitabine is scoring direct hits there. We’ll know in about two weeks if it’s making any headway.

Date of Blood Draw (CBC)	White Blood Cell Count	% Blasts in circu-lation	Hematocrit (red blood cells)	Platelets	Absolute Neutro- phils
5-Jan-15	2.16	6.0%	25.60	39.00	0.17
8-Jan-15	1.58	4.0%	22.10	39.00	0.16
12-Jan-15	1.04	4.7%	22.40	40.00	0.12
15-Jan-15	1.40	16.0%	22.40	38.00	0.03
19-Jan-15	2.29	22.0%	23.70	29.00	0.05
23-Jan-15	3.42	23.0%	23.80	36.00	0.34
28-Jan-15	9.46	49.0%	22.90	58.00	1.51
30-Jan-15	11.80	30.8%	20.90	78.00	1.30
1-Feb-15	9.13		23.60	66.00
4-Feb-15	3.39	42.0%	23.10	39.00	0.41
13-Feb-15	3.53	pending	19.40	49.00	Pending

Quiet As Falling Snow

            I haven’t posted for nearly a month, because there’s been no news: no blood transfusions, no sudden rise in white blood cell counts. A blessed, quiet month.

            We’ve had a lot of snow. Jim and I actually got out of Boston one Sunday evening, just ahead of one of the storms, and came back during another. We spent that first week of February in temperate San Francisco, staying with our niece Carla and her husband Daniel and visiting Ted and Kathy Perry. They are famous in our family history, cheerfully lending Jim their car so he could drive 33 miles from Princeton to Westfield for a first date with Mary Hazen.

            We visited the giant redwoods in Muir Woods in Marin County, and spent five days touring San Francisco: the obligatory cable car ride and a fun morning tooling around in a little go car (a glorified three wheeled motorcycle with GPS-triggered commentary), Dungeness crab on Fisherman’s Wharf, and even the Walt Disney Family Museum. Matt gave us the special edition boxed set of Mary Poppins and Saving Mr. Banks, so I’m on a Walt Disney kick.

            Matt visited David while we were gone and they had a whirlwind trip to Manhattan to see R’el. The trip ended with the three of them stuck in the snow of our driveway, after a harrowing drive home. They got the car unstuck and picked us up early Sunday morning. By Monday night my arm ached so from shoveling that I couldn’t sleep.

            I’m writing this from 205 Water St., Perth Amboy, NJ, my parents’ home since 1985. The Salvation Army truck drivers came today and nearly emptied the house: 3 recliners, futon, cabinets, tables, desks, and chairs. I said goodbye to the dining room set that’s older than me, and the loveseats I lay on as a baby. Mom had them upholstered 40 years ago, but they look brand-new, crisp and spotless. Luckily the driver couldn’t take the old metal student’s desk or the white resin porch chair (with the notice on the back written in Sharpie: “Stolen from 205 Water St.” Perhaps it did deter a would-be thief.) So, here I sit, at an old grammar school desk as dusk falls, watching Staten Island fade beyond the Arthur Kill and the rather lurid yellow Barge Restaurant sign glowing, half hidden by a sycamore tree. The white and pink Christmas cacti are blooming in the front bay window; the orchid is way past its prime. Mom and Dad loved this view for 29 years. I’ll miss it too.