10 Months, Still Kickin

Boston was like a giant baked bean yesterday, hot and sticky. Fortunately, we had an early clinic appointment and were back home having lunch by 1:00 pm. There's nothing much to report, as my blood work continues to be summa cum laude. One bit of "news" is that my doctor eliminated a drug from my regimen, leaving me with just 2 prescriptions per day. That's probably about average for a 54-year old American, and those should be phased out by September. A chimerism test was ordered to see what's up with my cords. The last time we checked, Colorado Boy was dominating Aussie Boy by a 3 to 1 margin. Even my blood is a metaphor for American hegemony.

My immune system has added some new defensive moves, scoring a 247 on the CD4 count. Normal is 500-1500 so I'm still fragile, but you could probably drop me now and I won't shatter. I might get a crack or two. Don't worry, I'm still assiduously avoiding confrontation, especially with snotty toddlers.

A word on uniquity. That's not a word, but I think it sounds better than uniqueness. It would appear that I am the lone cord blood transplantee living in the State of Rhode Island. This came out in a conversation I had the other day with a policy analyst for the RI House of Representatives. We were chatting about the cord blood initiative the RI Blood Center's trying to get off the ground, bouncing around ideas about how to make the case compelling in the eyes of the public and the powers that be. Normally, I'd love to be unique in some way, but I would not have chosen this specialty. It chose me, so I'm going to try to find some use for it.

Shout out to Ann and Chris!