June 4, 2003
Anthony went to the clinic yesterday to have his blood count done.  He didn't mind going this time and was very cooperative when he was there.  He was in a great mood all day, and even remarked on the way to the clinic: "It's a nice day today...huh?"  By the way, his Hemoglobin was 8.6 (a bit low), Platelets were 228,000 (very good), and white blood cell count (ANC) was 1,400 (low, but not at the bottom yet).  See Understanding Blood Counts for a list of normal counts. He is still not too crazy about taking his Bactrim (antibiotic to be taken on Mondays and Tuesdays only).  It smells pretty good (grape), but he just doesn't like drinking it.  We tried letting him take some, wait, and take the rest, but he wound up vomiting 3 times on Monday before he finally drank it and kept it down.  Our new strategy is to sneak up with it, grab him, and quickly put it to his mouth to dump it in.  It seems to work.  He took it twice that way without vomiting.  He still tries his delay tacticts, though.  When we go to give it too him he always says "wait, wait...I have to tell you something."  We wait a second, but he never actually says anything.  He just keeps saying "I have to tell you something". Unless anything of note happens between now and the start of the next cycle, I won't be writing anything new until June 17.  Check back then...