On the road to recovery

Mina Brigitta's neutrophil count was 280 today, after being 50 yesterday. The criterion for sending us home is 500 for three consecutive days, so it's looking possible that we might be home for the weekend. Monday or Tuesday at the latest. That would give us a solid two weeks at home before we go back for the transplant. They're also trying to schedule the last of her baseline tests (pulmonary function, another sinus MRI) before we leave the hospital, so Keri won't have to be up here every day this time. We still haven't got the final word on the schedule, but everything is proceeding as if the 28th date is solid. That means we would come in on the 23rd. It's such a relief that she's recovering her counts. It would have been really bad to get a fungal infection or something that would linger. As it is, she does have a cough and runny nose. Whatever she has doesn't seem to be very fast-moving, but she really needs to clear it by the 23rd.

Mina is still digesting her weekend with the family. She understands that "Anta Tutu house", but when I asked her who was coming to see her today, she still said "Antaaaah!" and when I said no, "Tutuuuuh!" She seemed to hit it off very well with Zeedie today, however. She's definitely still recovering physically; she was a tired girl today after going to bed at 11 last night. But tonight she was up until 10 again.

This morning I put on a new Bob Dylan CD that Keri bought me. It's a concert CD that's have accoustic and half electric. She seemed to like it, putting her hand to her ear and smiling when he played the harmonica. So I told her it was "Bob", and she repeated "Bob!". Then I showed her pictures from the jewel case, and she talked about "Bob" all day! We'd ask her if she wanted to hear "Bob", and she'd say "Yeah, Bob!" or "See, Bob!" to see the pictures. It was interesting, though; she looked kind of alarmed when I put on the second CD, which is all electric. Not unlike how his fans reacted 40 years ago, I suppose.