So today I actually fainted… twice! Luckily it happened to be during a visit with my friend Jeannie, who was a nurse in this unit some time ago, so rather than quietly freaking out (as I’d expect from any other visitor) she joined the team in reviving me. I remember looking at Jeannie, feeling sweaty and saying ”I feel kind of tired” and waking up with her calling my name.

It turns out I had really low blood pressure, mostly from being dehydrated. I have a saline drip, but also need to drink constantly. Suddenly I can’t stand the tang of my beloved metal canteen, I’ve never been a fan of the Gatorades that are so plentifully available here, and those little apple juices and orange juices are just too sweet. So they doubled up my saline for a couple hours, and I’ve been drinking lots of plastic bottle water.

Confined to bed rest for several hours until my blood pressure stabilized (and it finally has), I was saved by Alex with several bottles of my favorite coconut water and a couple bags of salty snacks. My numbers are back on track, so now I’m happily blogging away after enjoying another compellingly creepy episode of American Horror Story with my sweetie.

Meanwhile, we got some potentially good news. The chromosomal analysis of my bone marrow shows that I’m within a subset that typically has a very good prognosis with just the high does induction chemo regimen I completed yesterday (plus a few weeks recovery time) followed by four more courses of chemo. This means there is much less likelihood of me needing a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. We’ll know for sure about that next week, though.