Waiting Again

Waiting to see Dr. Forman.

The next logical step to shut down the ITP and get my platelets to a safe range to prevent bleeding is to add steroids, a lot of steroids, about 80 mg of prednisone (1 mg/k/d) for about 14-30 days then a slow treacherous taper.

Good chance it will work, keep me out of the reach of the gators, but it sure doesn't drain the swamp. And it comes at a pretty high cost.

And like any magic bullet, the first taste is free, but the second is pricey, and the third, well the third may cost me more than I can ever repay, and quitting may be tougher than dodging those gators.

And that is only the first relatively simple standard way of shutting down the ITP, not to put to fine a point on it, stopping the hemorrhaging before it begins.

That is just a bridge, actually more like a leaky pontoon, over troubled waters.

The real fun begins on the other side of the Rio Grande when I have to face THE BIG DECIDE.

Transplant or heavy duty therapy?

More on that quandary later. Today my head aches noodling the possibilities. The multifarious permutations and combinations makes simultaneous chess matches against a dozen grand masters feel like a tic-tac-toe match against a first grader with a learning problem.

In the end, it will be my call. Or the CLL will decide for me.

I have a week or two to decide. That'll work.

I hope.

Tomorrow's platelet count will determine how fast I have to move and how high I must jump.

I am confident, and ready to enter the arena again, but I didn't know it would be the circus high wire, without a net.

Being on a tightrope is living; everything else is waiting. - Karl Wallenda

Yea, right.