I'm a failure

Well, not really, but my bone marrow is. It's currently not working hard enough to produce white blood cells and so my counts are very low. This means that I am not allowed to do chemo this week. This was to be round 5 (round 4 went very well) which is a new chemo drug and a whole lot of new potential side effects. I was feeling anxious about the change but keen to "git 'er done," as we say in Canada. My health care team now have me waiting a week to allow my bone marrow to grow some more white blood cells and then we can try again next week.

It's such a strange place to be; I feel absolutely fabulous, though bald with sticky-outey ears, kind of alien like when I wear ear-rings with no hat (see photo above). Yet despite feeling so strong, there is something amuck in me that eliminates my ability to receive chemo. Which delays this whole treatment train a whole week. I know it's for my own good, but I really hate to not be able to ace this process. I've been so proud of my progress to date. Failing my bloods is a bit of a blow.

CON #2 - I failed something! I never fail...

Cue lots of research on all the hokey ways one might boost their production of white blood cells....

Since we last spoke, my amazing cousin Hayley has arrived to live with us for a month and basically just look after us all. She's doing all my dishes, all the cooking, all the school pick-ups and drop offs. She's basically our angel. We took her to Haines, Alaska to try and show her something outside the confines of Whitehorse domesticity.

It was Easter weekend and we planned to wall-tent in a small, walk-in campground in Haines. Mountain Dad fretted about our arriving on the Friday night.

"Ooooo," he muttered, "everyone will beat us there. We should go early to get a spot. Maybe we should leave Wednesday? Maybe Friday will be too late?"

Bear in mind that Haines at Easter averages a temperature of zero degrees. It's still mostly snow covered. It really is still winter. I wasn't terribly worried.

We left on the Friday and as we pulled up to the campground at 8pm that night, Mountain Dad was anxiously craning to get a view of the sites.

"What if there's no room for us?" he wondered.

We all piled out of the car, stretching our cramped limbs, brushing potato chip dust from our clothes and surveyed the wide expanse of empty campground. If there were tumbleweeds in Haines, Alaska they'd have been tumbling across the unblemished snow.  A couple of feet deep, snow covered the entire campground. Not a tent, not a foot print to be seen.

"Huh," Mountain Dad marvelled, "no-one here!"

I think that he is the only person I know who is surprised that NO-ONE ELSE WANTED TO CAMP IN THE SNOW. And he remains surprised and perplexed, despite my trying to explain that most people prefer their holiday accommodation to be warm, to be the easier option. Especially in winter.

And so we camped. Hayley in the wall tent with the kids and I and the wood stove. Mountain Dad strung up a hammock and slept in the shelter of the tree's.

The Easter Bunny even managed to find us again, as he always does despite our wall-tenting adventures. 

The weekend was so relaxing we found time for some post-breakfast napping. 

Stay tuned for the next episode in which we celebrate the Return of The White Blood Cell.