My roller coaster ride continues. Yesterday was a two medical campus day: Stanford in the morning, Kaiser Oakland in the afternoon. My latest labs showed improvement in some important markers including a considerable increase in my platelet count. The docs determined that I could stop taking two of the meds I've been on since coming home. Because of these positive developments, I can now reduce the number of blood draws from twice a week to once a week. Dr. Green at Kaiser thinks the frequency of these labs can be reduced even further over the coming weeks.

I was also told I can now discard my HEPA mask. One of my Stanford team members suggested keeping it as a Halloween mask. The docs further confirmed that I can, indeed, start driving again later next week. I’m really appreciative of friends who have driven me to all my appointments at Stanford as well as at Kaiser. While I'll still be restricted in other areas for the next five months (e.g., gardening, housework, water aerobics), I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel again.

In the meantime, however, my cold has become more serious. Still coughing, still have a runny nose, and still feeling very fatigued. My chest X-ray confirmed pneumonia. So, I’ve been put on a fairly heavy duty antibiotic (Levofloxacin) one of whose many possible side-effects is nausea. Manageable so far, but barely. I'm also taking several other new prescription and non-prescription meds to deal with this cold/pneumonia. So much for reducing the number of meds I'm taking. If all this doesn’t help in 10 days, then the next course of action is to have a bronchoscopy: a lighted tube inserted via my nose or mouth to investigate what’s going on with my lungs. Hopefully, the meds will work and I won't need to have that experience. Although I was making some headway as far as gaining some weight, my appetite is off again -- likely due to some combination of the meds and the pneumonia. I am eating, but not as enthusiastically as I've been doing. For the moment, I've fallen into the "Eat to live"camp rather than "Live to eat."

As always, thanks for sending all those good wishes and vibes my way.

This flower appeared a few days ago in the parking strip next to my house. I had no idea what it was until I used a plant ID app. Cilantro! For those of you who knew Tim, you may remember that cilantro was his most hated food item. He described the taste in the most unappetizing way: some combination of soap and dog shit. I still don’t know where this plant came from, but I think Tim would be amused.