Groundhog Day

It feels like we've entered some sort of parallel universe. While the rest of the world has left Covid behind and is going on all of the vacations, participating in all of the activities, and hanging out with all of the people, we are trapped.

We are still wearing masks; we are kept on a very short leash from home; and we do the same things over and over again, day after day. It feels very much like we're living our own version of Groundhog Day. It's as if we think if we repeat the sequence enough times, we will eventually break the cycle.

Maybe we will. 

But right now it feels pretty never-ending. 

We have seen very little change in Aaron's counts this week: some numbers went up, some went down, but most stayed about the same.

Of particular interest is his CMV number, which went up from 3000 to 4000 on Monday, but then happily made a big drop on Thursday from 4000 to 1300. Unfortunately, it looks like he maybe caught something else since he's had a headache the last two days, has been tired, and felt pretty nauseous this morning. We're checking regularly for the two big red flags (fever for bone marrow transplant, ketones for diabetes), but so far, he's been fine. He's drinking lots of fluids and resting and hopefully we'll figure out if something more is going on when he's at his appointment tomorrow. 

I'm afraid this post probably sounds like a bit of a downer. That's not what I meant it to be. I think our whole family is just feeling a little beat down at the moment as we continue to do the work and hope for positive results soon. 

I try to remind myself that this is all part of the process. It's slow and tedious and often discouraging. It is not a quick fix. This is partly why it was so devastating when Aaron relapsed in January: because we'd already been through this process once before and we knew how slow and tedious and often discouraging it could be. 

But we're continuing to plug along, one day at a time. The good news is we actually really love to spend time together, so we're continuing to make many happy memories, albeit through simple ways.

(If I'm being completely honest, the real disappointment of the week (at least in Aaron's opinion) had little to do with counts and everything to do with the Jazz being eliminated from the playoffs. He took it hard.)