It's Always Something

A few years ago, when I was laboriously building my financial tracking spreadsheet, I came to the realization that there was a not-insignificant amount of money that we spent just about every month. It varied as to what it was, and of course the amount varied, but it was always there. This month, the front water spigot needs to be repaired; last month, we replaced the water heater; next month, the daughteroid needs stuff for school. We found this realization that theres always something to be helpful, because it helped us get a better sense of how much we spent per month, and where it went -- which played directly into making better assessments of what our financial health was like.

Sometimes, the 'always something' can be good news.

In the next few weeks, we have several medical activities going on -- both of us will have a colonoscopy; I'll have a bone graft, to be followed by several weeks of liquid diets. This morning, the first of them occurred -- my wife went in to the hematologist she sees to get the first of whats planned to be several blood tests to find out why her blood platelet count is low. It's normally very high -- the condition's called Essential Thombocytosis -- to the point where she'd been put on a drug called Agrilyn to bring it down. Two weeks ago, alarmed over some swelling near her arm's lymph nodes (an area that the hematologist always checks), she went in to see him. Turned out that it was nothing, but along the way, he did a blood test and found that her platelet count had dropped significantly. This would likely have gotten caught at some point, but seeing it now, he had her knock off that drug for a week, to see if the count was being suppressed by the drug -- which turned out to be the case. He said that on occasion, the condition essentially 'goes into remission', and during that period she either needs less, or none, of the drug. Thats what they're trying to figure out now.

Would that the gastro stuff and the bone graft turn out so pleasantly!