White count starting to down, but still no relief

 Over the next few days I was finding it difficult to breathe. I felt a great deal of pressure in my upper abdominal area, and it was so sore under my left breast that I had to literally place my arm under my breast, and hold it up any time that I was sitting up, standing up, or walking around. I'm not sure if any of you have ever had internal pain coming from an organ before, but it is a sensation that I had never felt before, and it is a whole different kind of pain!

I called my oncologist to update them that I was going on a couple weeks with my spleen still feeling as if it were swollen, and I was back at work. I explained that I couldn't handle the amount of pain that I was in when I was upright, and that I couldn't do my job professionally. My office has people coming in it all day long, and I wasn't about to walk around holding my breast up, so that it could at least provide me a little relief from the amount of pain I was in. So the doctor wanted me to come back into the office to be seen. 

When I got into a room at the doctor's office, my regular doctor wasn't in. So they had me see the nurse practitioner, instead of the other oncologist. When she came into my room, she asked me to explain to her where I was having pain, which I did. After going over everything she had me lie back on the table and began to feel around on my stomach. She told me that my spleen still felt enlarged. She went on to explain that since I was no longer on Hydroxyurea, and now going to take Gleevec that my spleen should begin to shrink. I was told that the reason my spleen swelled was because my white blood count was so high, and the Hydroxyurea is normally a fast acting drug and that caused my spleen to enlarge sense it couldn't keep up with my white count dropping that much. I was instructed to rest, and was provided a note from my oncologist to let my employer know that I would need additional time off of work. My employer was very accommodating and allowed me to work from home (tent). 

Meanwhile with all of this going on with my health, Matt and I both knew that there was no way I was going to be able to continue to handle sleeping in a tent in the heat. We didn't have the money or credit to move into any apartment or house, so he had found a small camper online. He did a bunch of research on it, and showed me the website. The camper was very small, you couldn't stand up in it, it didn't have a bathroom in it either. But you could sit up in, and it had an air conditioner and heat. So after discussing it and our other options, we decided to put our money together and purchase it. The company was in Florida. Their process was to get all of our information together, we paid them the money upfront, and they would notify us once they were finished constructing it. 

About three weeks later we drove to Florida to pick up our camper. We were both very excited that we would no longer have to sleep in a tent, regardless of the size of the camper it was a step up and in the right direction. 

After picking up our camper we decided to stay in Florida for a few days, and spend some time with part of my family that lives in Florida. It was nice to see them, and to be sleeping on a bed in the camper. On our way home we decided to take a different route home, so that I could see my grandfather that lived on the other side of Florida. I hadn't seen him since I was a child. Him and my dad had a falling out many years prior. I had been talking to my grandfather on the phone, and he expressed how much he wanted to see me. So I thought I would surprise him. 

My grandfather was surprised to see me, and we discussed my dad, aunt, and uncles. He told me how much he was ready to go to Heaven and be with his wife that had passed many years prior. Before I left he gave me one of his Bibles, that had a picture of my dad with his older brother in it. He still had pictures hanging on his wall of my dad, mom, and me and one of my brothers as well as his other children and grandchildren, which surprised me! While visiting him I was introduced to a cousin and his family, that I had never met before. 

That would be the last time that I would see my grandfather. As I received a phone call from a family member months later, telling me that our grandfather had slit his own throat.....