Day 6: Blood

Dad Stats:
Most recent temperature: 97.4F
Most recent blood pressure: 103/55
Today's white blood cell count: 0.13

Dad and I had a pretty routine morning. He got checked out by Elizabeth, his day nurse, and Melissa around 8am, and then we went on our morning walk. It wasn't as eventful as yesterday morning's walk I'm sorry to report!

Dad has actually been feeling pretty active today. We went on not one but two walks before noon, and he has been much more awake, although still somewhat loopy. We had some very interesting conversations, one about the people who work inside of the internet and another about a dog training course that Dad wants to participate in when he gets better...

His mouth sores were about the same as yesterday, although it seemed easier to understand what he was saying today. I'm not sure if he's adjusting to the pain, or if the morphine is controlling the pain well, or both. Elizabeth keeps saying that it's amazing he is still swallowing his pills at this point!

As expected, Dad's hemoglobin is just below the cutoff level today, and so he received a unit of blood around noon. He had no problems during the transfusion.

Alex came down after lunchtime today to take over from me. I'm headed to Bolivia on Saturday, so today was my last day with Dad for a while. I was very sad to leave him before he is 100% well, but I'm excited that he will be feeling much better next time I see him!

The main event of the afternoon is that Alex discovered that Dad has a pretty bad hangnail. It apparently was quite an ordeal to get nail clippers, and even then they couldn't completely fix it. We're not exactly sure how Dad got his hangnail, but I wonder if it could actually be from the chemotherapy.

Other than that Alex and Dad watched a lot of Fox News throughout the afternoon. They also went on several walks. Al said that Dad apparently didn't take a nap all afternoon, so it seems that his days of near-hibernation may be coming to a close. Now they're settling in for the night.