Personal Good News on the CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) Front at OSU

Selfie with Roy Lichtenstein's wonderful sculpture at the Columbus Ohio Airport 

Perfect weather in Columbus, Ohio and a lovely walk in the woods with OSU friends the day before my OSU clinic morning with Dr. Byrd.

The Columbus airport is in the throes of construction so they have moved the marvelous structure by Ohio State University alumni, Roy Lichtenstein to a more accessible site where I could snuggle up to his flying brush strokes.

At the James Cancer Hospital, my vital signs were all good with my usual healthy low end of normal blood pressure, no fever, slow pulse, and stable weight.

Physical exam revealed no surprises (no enlarged nodes or  organs), and my lab was rock steady. Red blood cells were just the tiniest bit low, platelets were stable in the high 300's, neutrophils were good and my absolute lymphocyte count was 1.2.

My immunoglobulins are still very low except for "my" IGG level. The "my" is in quotations as the source of my normal IGG on the blood test is from many other generous souls whose blood donations were pooled to produce my every seven weeks infusion of IVIG that boost only that one antibody. As of today, there is no known way to raise my poor IGA and IGM levels.

Blood chemistries were all perfect with my happy healthy liver and renal function tests, electrolytes, and blood sugar. Clean living has its rewards. And ibrutinib is less likely to inflame the liver compared to many other cancer therapies.

Everything tested really hasn't changed much in over a year. Rock steady. I like it.

My only complaint is that appointment was at 9 AM and it's 12:30 now and I am still waiting for my magic grey pills (PCI-32765 AKA ibrutinib) to be dispensed so that I can skedaddle. I was hoping to catch a 12:30 flight out, but that is sure not going to happen. There's another flight in a 90 minutes, but it is fully booked. Miss that I will be sitting at the airport for several hours.

Tomorrow, due to a quirk of scheduling, I do it all over again in San Diego at UCSD with Dr. Kipps.

It's all OK, especially when the news is so good.

PS: I  did nab the very last space on an earlier flight (that left late of course) to Chicago from Columbus, then had to race from one side of the airport to the other at O'Hare to snag my standby seat to LAX just as they were announcing the flight was closed, waited forever for the shuttle to my offsite cheaper parking, discovered too late that the 405 freeway home was stopped dead due to a car fire, so I snuck off going around a barrier as I missed the last possible off ramp, and finally made it home  using surface streets for a great vegan dinner and a short refreshing swim. Now time to sleep. Traveling is not for wimps, but life is good.