Sent: Sunday, October 24, 1999 8:14 AM
Subject: T+3, early morning report

Ho hum.  Everything here is moving along absolutely as well as it can.  Just 
had the nurse come in for some maintenance, and she said that the results 
from my 4 am blood tests came back totally normal, with the blood counts 
still not back.  My white blood cells have been dropping like a rock, and 
should be down to about as low as they will get today or tomorrow, which is 
practiacally down to zero.  This is not a problem.  It would be for you, but 
it, in fact, what I have been paying for at this hotel.  With the whites goes 
my immune systems and all the other bad stuff.

I have had an interesting 4 hours of sleep.  Somebody said, maybe I heard it 
in a dream during this period, that I would have episodal dreaming about my 
blood cells.  You may find this hard to believe, but it has been sort of like 
my own private, YOU GUESSSED IT, Star Trek episode, the lost shows.  I have 
never been able to remember my dreams, and the last several hours have been 
no exception.  But I can honestly say that there have been several distinct 
'shows' , all starring, in some way, me and my blood system.  No details are 
now available to my conscious mind, except for the one with the Klingon 
dragging me across the room by my IV tubes (just kidding).  So what did you 
dream about tonight.

I think that the chemo and radiation has begun to effect my mouth cells, not 
with any sores or pain, but with the loss of taste sensations that I have 
been told to expect.  Noticed it last night when the spaghetti seemed like it 
was cooked by somebody new.  This is no big deal, but the taste of the 
chocolate mousse that I had for lunch yesterday may have to stay with my 
memories for a long, long time.  How insidious, all that I am going through, 
and you can't enjoy Rocky Road for a year.  I have been expecting this, and 
have savoured each mouthful of food for the last few days, never knowing when 
this turn would come.  Canned pears, the mousse, applesauce and the rest 
never tastes as good as when you think it may be the last time you taste it 
for a long, long time.

I was in the hospital only one other time in my life, and this seems like a 
good time to tell a funny story from then.  About 8 or 9 years ago I had a 
kidney stone.  Not really too bad, and the morphine they gave me was pretty 
interesting.  The stone was taken out with real minor surgery, and they did a 
chemical analysis on it.  The doctors said that the stone was chemically an 
oxylate.  I sort of knew the answer to this, but asked him if I could cut 
foods with oxylate out of my diet, would that reduce the chances of my 
getting another stone.  He said yes, and so I asked him which foods.  He said 
that oxylate is found in green leafy vegetables, like spinach and swiss 
chard, and in chocolate,  I gave up swiss chard.

I have been working on some more stuff to get out, including a detailed 
description of my environment, and details on a lot of the things they 
typiclly do to me around here.  This is really for my own satisfaction when I 
get out of here, so I can remember as much as possible, and to maybe provide 
a much more detailed information source for  the people who will inevitably 
follow me into such a place.  It probably won't keep anyone else up late at 
night reading it, but it is important to me.  Also has at least a few trivia 
questions, so far, and may turn into something more, who knows.  It is 
probably more representative of my normal dull engineering writings than some 
of the stuff I have produced recently.  Anyway, I worked on it yesterday, and 
it is taking longer than expected.

If you are interested, check out the web page.  There are new pictures of the 
actual transplant, including the soup itself.  Just remember that my belly 
has not really grown that big, it's just the result of months of anemia, no 
excercise, ice cream and cheesecake.

Sweet dreams.

Dave