This is what success looks like

I didn't want to jinx it, so I decided to wait a few days before blogging about being released from the hospital, since the last 2 times I gushed about how great it was to be back at home I got sent back to the hospital shortly after. But this time feels *different*. I feel great, I haven't had any fevers, I have a bunch of energy, I'm eating normally, and basically I'm *feeling* normal for a change. It's so uplifting. So yes, I'm back home again and loving it.

Yesterday I had another bone marrow biopsy to see whether the induction chemotherapy was successful or not. If I have too many blasts in the marrow, it means there are still leukemic cells in there and we would consider doing another round of induction chemo (ugh) or consolidation chemo (slightly less ugh, but still ugh) to try and finish them off. If the marrow looks normal, then we would start making plans to get back into the transplant program. Obviously you can tell which option I prefer.

So the super awesome news is that my oncologist called just a few hours ago to give me the good news that my marrow looks normal for the first time. Which means that I might be in full remission soon! We weren't supposed to meet with my oncologist until next Monday, so it's super cool that he and the pathologist were able to run the labs today and give me the results before the holiday. I'm still a little cautiously excited about it, but it's hard to dispute the lab results. In my head it seems possible that next week or the week after we might see more blasts, but the fact that I show normal marrow results at this point is great news. Some of the counts, including white blood cells and red blood cells, are coming up a little more slowly than we'd hoped, but other than that it looks pretty good. It's also hard to get *too* excited about these counts coming up since the transplant will just wipe them all out again anyway, but this puts me in a much better position before going into the transplant. No word yet on what the schedule will be.

Btw, here are my platelet counts since June. Each of those little spikes are the result of a transfusion. Except, folks, for that massive spike there at the end. That's *my* marrow making those platelets. Awesome.