Bubble Boy.

For some reason, I managed to get Leukemia during one of the worst flu seasons in about five years. For the most part, my office has been decimated by it, but our household had been spared...until today. It seems Eli has a touch of it right now. His fever has been hovering around 101 and we just juiced him up with Motrin. It's easy to forget how bad you feel when you see your children suffering. At this point, he's just a little warm and some chills, but seemingly in a good mood. Although the Flu shot has been largely ineffective nationwide, we're hopeful that Maris will be spared of the sickness since she was the only one in our house that received it.

On top of everythign else, it's a particularly tough time for me because I just happen to be at my lowest natural resistance level to date. My whites climbed a bit to 2,200 - but my ANC (absolute neutrophilis count) is 900/L, down from 1,200 on Monday. The Neutrophilis (a spelling I'm probably butchering) are the front line fighters in your blood. The reaction I'm getting is quite normal, but the timing is very inopportune. This low number puts me at a moderate risk for infection which could land me back at the ER should I get violent chills or a fever of 100.5. I pretty much always have my hands full of Purell so I'm hopeful I'll be spared, for my sake and Kristin's. My NP also called in a new script that lowered my daily Gleevec from 400mg to 300mg with hopes of slowly bringing my levels back up. From what I've read, 300mg is pretty much the lowest they'll go so this may be the new norm for a while.

I'm still really nervous about getting sick, but I keep reminding myself that despite the fact my numbers are low - it just means the meds are working really well. It can take 3 to 4 weeks for these levels to regulate so I may just resort to IV Purell.

Now that all that medical stuff is covered - here's some good news.

I finally purchased an iPhone. I sold myself on the need to keep all my doctor appointments and contact information with me at all times. But...the fact of the matter is - I liked the idea of having music, photos and phone all in one place. It really is a remarkable tool. Elegant interface, unmatched feature set and a great looking piece of hardware. Even with my technical background, I get the feeling that I'm only going to use about 15% of the features available on it.

Time for some shut-eye.