Ear infection, again?

Quick update: Went in for regular visit with Dr. Goldberg today. Platelets are at 40, down from 63 after the transfusion, so they are still up there (hooray!). Though my white blood cell count and neutrophils are way down again. And wouldn't you know it, that stuffiness in my head and the crackling sound I've been noticing in my ear has paved the way for another ear infection. Great. The last time I had an ear infection it knocked me on my ass for 2 days and was super painful. Luckily this one doesn't hurt as bad and I'm on antibiotics for it already (Levofloxacin -- $10 a pill!), so it should knock it out pretty quickly. Dr. Goldberg also scheduled me to see a good ENT (ear, nose and throat doc) tomorrow morning, which is pretty amazing given that it took my mom several weeks to see the same ENT for her chronic sinusitus.

Other than that, the visit went well. We pored over the fancy charts I put together and got a bunch of our technical questions answered.

The biggest news is that we may postpone or cancel the next round of chemotherapy depending on whether I can get on the AMG531 clinical trial. AMG531 is a drug that has been in the works for several years. It's purpose is to increase platelets (exactly my problem). No other drug has been able to do that, so if we can get the platelets up with AMG531 it's possible I won't need any more rounds of chemotherapy before the transplant. Or put another way, the chemo doesn't seem to be doing enough to bring up the platelets and other blood cells to continue doing it. However, the only way to really tell is with a bone marrow biopsy, so I'm scheduled for another one of those soon. Fun. Here's more info about it if you're interested. My last biopsy really wasn't as bad as I expected so I'm mainly just going for sympathy votes here :)

Oh, and here are some pictures from our trip to Mt. Rainier last weekend!

Hiking the short Nisqually Vista trail.


Wildlife.


Awww, poor droopy flower. It'll be ok soon!


Family picture.


The cool spaceship building (visitor center). Too bad they'll be tearing it down soon :(


Bye bye!