Balance

• Hemoglobin 13.5 (WHO normal 14.0-17.3) — normal by UM standards
  
• Absolute neutrophil count 2.4 (normal 1.4-7.5) — NORMAL
  
• White blood cell count 3.1 (normal 4-10) — subnormal but expected
• Platelet count 201 (normal 150-450) — NORMAL

These counts are from April 9 (see new charts). The fact that I'm just getting around to posting them, three weeks later, gives you an idea of how much less urgent this all seems now. White blood count's low because of low lymphocytes (0.4, normal ≥ 1.2), which we expect to see for another 18 months or so. (This carries no clinical implications, so nobody's worried. Not even me.) Everything else looks great.

They actually had to make me go in for the blood test. I thought Dr. B had put me on a 3-month schedule, but the nurses thought otherwise, so I grumbled but I went. I won't have another until mid-May, at my next followup with Dr. B.

It's been 6 weeks since my last headache. Once in a while I get a twinge that reminds me the underlying condition's still hanging around, but otherwise I am absolutely, completely normal now. I can do anything. Bring it on.

Median time to relapse is 8 years. Retreatment usually works. Some people never need more treatment. And I have a normal life expectancy. That shakes out as victory — which is never permanent anyway, so why the hell not.

In fact I feel better than I have in 2 years. The other day I suddenly realized I'm taking stairs 2 at a time again, something I did all my life until I gradually started slowing down as my hemoglobin dropped. I made up all kinds of excuses — aging, tired that day, didn't want to sweat in my work clothes. But I sometimes wondered why I couldn't just bound on up the stairs, like I always had.

Anyway. Balance. I had in mind "balance sheet," adding up a bit of what I learned from all this. Today that seems like a bigger job than I want to tackle, so I'll just throw out this:

Time is short, and precious. Don't waste it wishing you were somebody else.

If you've got a good life, you don't need another one. Just do what you do, use what you have, give everything you can to everyone who needs you. Chop wood. Carry water.

Objection

Passed on to me by a friend:

Conscientious Objector
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans,
many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.