Dr. Loukas didn’t bring us the news we were looking for. But it’s what we’ve got. Maggie’s white count is at 400, twice yesterday’s count and infinitely higher than it was when we checked in on Monday so we’re headed in the right direction. But we didn’t need a doctor to tell us she still isn’t well. She ran temperature all night, up and down and we changed her bedding and gown twice because she sweated through. Just another long night in the hospital. We’re definitely here until Friday. It’s unlikely that she’s going to make her MPRE licensing exam, which is pretty unfortunate. I’ll call today to _try_ to get them to bring the test up here for Maggie but it’s a long shot. They were about as friendly as a Javelina hog last time I talked with them so I don’t have much faith they will be compassionate about our situation. I think I’d have a better chance at …pick your own ending*:

• Political Humor: …getting George Bush to bring home the troops.
• Religious Humor: …getting the Pope and Bin Laden to have high tea.
• Software Humor: …getting Bill Gates to adopt Linux as the OS of choice.
• Children Humor: …convincing the chicken to cross the road.
• Potty Humor: …shitting a brick.
• Relationship Humor: …finding a girl with that cooks, cleans and owns a nice bass boat.
• Marriage Humor: …getting my wife to like my girlfriend.
• Blonde Humor: …finding a Blonde brain surgeon.
• Fat Humor: …taking cake from a fat kid without loosing an arm.

* Don’t misconstrue my humor as having any political agenda. My only agenda is taking care of my wife.

At this point, Maggie’s trip to Greece is starting to come at risk. But we have faith. Once she turns the corner and gets that white count back up she should improve dramatically and rapidly. Come on, white count!

Again the question of why is top of mind. Dr. Loukas wants to drop her chemo dosage down for her next treatments which is not particularly good. He thinks this is a cumulative effect of the CPT-11. I, however, with my years of medical training, firmly believe that something went wrong with the Neulasta shot. Maybe it was damaged during transport or got too cold because of the ice travel pack. Who knows? I was unable to pull Dr. Loukas into a real discussion about it because I think he felt I was trying to asses blame, which, when you are trying to establish causality sounds a lot like assessing blame but, of course, that was furthest from my mind.

Dr. Loukas did say visitation was fine as long as anyone who is at risk of any type of infection does not come by.

And thank you, Leslee, for sending dinner.  Jason’s Deli sure beats hospital food any day.

A quick MPRE update: Maggie called the MPRE folks to nicely request to test be administered here at the hospital.  The genius on the phone with her told her she should not have scheduled her test when she was going to be in the hospital.  (These guys are just not winning many points from me.)  She asked again about proctoring the test here at the hospital and the answer was a cold “no.”  So, that’s that.  The next test is in November so I guess we get to wait yet again.

Another MPRE update: Maggie has asked me to clarify that the MPRE folks were not being mean to her.  In fact, she said, the guy was very polite but firm.  He said that the test date was too close for any options to be considered and that she’s just going to have to wait for the next test date.  He said that she might be able to at least get a refund for this test with appropriate medical documentation stating why she is going to miss the test.