Posts Tagged: hidac
Another Nadir
So I had a checkup today, platelets and hemoglobin were pretty low (14 and 8.3 respectively) so they gave me transfusions for each of them. My ANC was low, 740, but not neutropenic, so probably I’m still on the way down, and gonna bottom out some time in the next several days. I’ll be avoiding public for a while, again, which is all expected.
Programming-wise I’ve been learning how to incorporate Objective C code in with the Swift code I work in by using a bridging header. Expanding my understanding of how to program feels really good, and should pay off as better software in the end. This should make it easier for me to get permission from the user to use the camera, and store photos, and maybe resolve some of the issues I had originally with it not granting permission the first time — which I think I solved, but was told there were better solutions still. Also it should let me handle metadata finally, which I’ve been struggling with. I can get the original metadata when the photo is taken, but never figured out how to save it with the resulting photo. I’d also like to add a “made with” tag in the metadata, so maybe I can do that soon too. Then I may need to have an actual privacy policy…
I made a tips & tricks page a while back, because I know I’ve learned a lot over the years about what works best in certain situations, and it would help if I could share that with other people. I should probably try to streamline that page as much as possible, and then incorporate it into some kind of help/tutorial/introduction to the app. So any feedback on that page would be greatly appreciated!
I haven’t worked on zeeify lately, and am going to shift it to spectrify, which will take a series of photos and use a cheap method of edge detection and then use the same kind of colorization schemes trippygram uses — mostly because this will all be easier to do and I’m curious what the results will look like. Plus if I’m going to colorize them, it won’t matter so much that I’ve used a cheaper method to cut out the sharp stuff.
And all that should keep me plenty occuppied for a while. I was thinking recently I should apply to be a substitute teacher, but I feel like I need to wait until my health situation is more stable, maybe after the transplant process, if that all goes well, maybe as I recover I’ll be able to do something like substitute teaching. Guess I’ll wait and see!
Home Once Again
So I’m back home again, second round of “consolidation” is over. Things are still going well, the week was pretty uneventful — it all feels somewhat routine at this point. I walked a pretty good amount most days. We’re taking more precautions to hopefully avoid nosebleeds this time. I’ll have some followup appointments over the next few weeks to monitor my blood count numbers, and then sometime in the next few weeks I guess I’ll start meeting with doctors in Boston to get to know them, and the process for a partial match bone marrow donation. I’m nervous about the fact that they couldn’t find a complete match, but there isn’t really anything to do about it.
I wrote all the above yesterday — today too was rather uneventful. This morning my hemoglobin, platelets, and ANC were all low but well above need for transfusion or wearing a mask everywhere. Last time it seemed to happen pretty late, and stay down for a bit longer than expected.
So I’m back to learning about frameworks, bridging headers, and other programming concepts I need to understand to improve my software — and it’s good to get back into it.
Not Much to Report
So I’ve been re-admitted, as planned, probably until Saturday evening. My platelet count was 70, which wasn’t much higher than last week, and lower than the 100 they wanted for readmission, but they decided to wave it to get going on this round.
It’s all very familiar. Seeing all the nurses and doctors I’ve met. Eyedrops that make my food taste bad, but protect my eyes from the chemotherapy drug. Going for walks to avoid getting a painful shot of Lovonox in my stomach. Hickuping coming and going periodically. Feels very routine at this point.
But this should be the last round of consolidation chemotherapy before they try a bone marrow transplant. They never found a good match, so they’ll do a partial match transplant instead, which isn’t done here at Dartmouth, but rather down in Boston, Mass General I think.
The first two doses have been administered, they each last three hours, with twelve hours between them, and then thirty hours between each pair of doses. So two down, six to go.
Other than that I’m not sure what to say. I was working more on some software again before coming back to the hospital, and plan on working on it more while I’m here.
First Round of Consolidation
So it’s been a few days since I’ve updated — as has been the routine lately, this post is about my health.
Eight Down Four to Go
Day 2 of HIDAC
1st day of HIDAC
This is an update about my health, if you’re here for something else, like my software or other projects, feel free to skip this post, otherwise you can click the read more link below
This is a friend typing for Cody again: Started Round 2 of chemo yesterday around 6pm, this round is HIDAC for High-Dose Cytarabine (I’m not sure what the A stands for). It’s one of the same drugs I had in Round 1 except in a much much much larger dose. I get it twice a day, 6am and 6pm and so far it seems to have made me very fatigued so I’ve spent most of the morning lying around which is why I haven’t responded to people’s messages. I had a fever last night and a cough, they think I might have an infection so they’re putting me back on more antibiotics and did a chest x-ray. They did another echocardiogram to look at my heart and they haven’t heard back the results yet. I guess that’s all for now.
-Cody
