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Today I discussed with my doctor what I might be planning for. I asked if I should book our Christmas holiday now. She told me to wait a week.

My wcc is down to 2.8. That means I need to keep away from infections and come into hospital if I get a temperature. My HB is 92, which is still low, so, although I’m OK to walk and talk at the same time, I won’t be attempting an exercise class anytime soon.

We talked about what happens next. If my wcc doesn’t go up next week, I’ll be having a bone marrow biopsy sooner rather than later, to see what’s happening to my cells. If the cells in my bones haven’t gone into remission, treatment will be more aggressive. That’s code for chemotherapy. Now, for most patients with cancer, chemotherapy means going into hospital one day each six weeks or so. Not so for patients with leukaemia. For me it means three weeks in hospital, getting chemo, transfusions, platelets, IV antibiotics, then one week at home, then three weeks in hospital, and so on.

I was talking to my friend today about the meal roster, and how I’m feeling better and maybe it isn’t necessary to have a meal roster anymore. She advised me to hold on. We don’t know what’s coming. And if I’m spending three weeks at a time in hospital, I’ll be fine (although I don’t want to miss out on end of celebrations, especially the school Presentation Day), but my family will be needing lots of support.

In the meantime, I’m trying to be normal. I’ve started my unit of study to do over summer, thinking that if I need to withdraw, I’ll withdraw. I do kind of feel like just reading what I like and watching old movies and enjoying myself, but if I’m going to be OK, I’d like to have a unit of my course completed, and be in a better position to finish the degree next year, without too much stress. Lets see how I go. There might be lots of lying around ahead of me.