Briefly, her trajectory from my perspective. She confided in me in like November-ish. Some blood work had come back wonky and doctors wanted to follow-up with more tests. They did many more blood draws and many more tests. I think she got the diagnosis in December along with the shitty news that she would be spending 3-4 weeks in hospital getting chemo over the xmas break. That seemed to go really well and she was out in 3 with a clean bill of health. It didn't last that long and within a few weeks the cancer was back. Since late Jan or early Feb she has been spending every weekend in the hospital having endless varieties of chemo thrown at this.

There is a particular measure that seems critically indicative of her status. It is basically the percent of her blood cells impacted. Thus, the closer to 100 the worse the prognosis. A few weeks ago things really escalated from being around 20-30 at the end of every week and 0-5 after chemo weekends to being over 70 in just a day or two. At this point they really slammed her with chemo to get the numbers down and went for a bone marrow transplant. It doesn't seem to be working. A few days after the transplant the numbers started to creep up again. Last week they were in the 90s.

On Wednesday she came to see me to tell me that they were making her leave school and go home. It was 97. She told me that they have been saying things like "prepare for the worst" and that only about 10 percent of cases come back from numbers that high. Those are some seriously fucking shitty ass odds. I am so devastated for her. I don't even know precisely how to take all this in. I've never dealt with anything remotely similar. Death is such an unknown and death in such a vibrant and wonderful young person is just the most twisted thing I've ever encountered. I can't really fathom it and feel like I'm in denial. I also sometimes feel myself withdraw and I think it's like a self protecting reflex. The day she came to tell me it was 99 and that they told her that if it gets to 100 they can't do anything else and that from that point she'll have about 6-8 weeks (to live, she never says it). I couldn't do anything except tell her that I did not know what to say but if I could do anything I would and that I could listen to anything she wanted to say. We play phone txt all the time. She opens up a lot in those messages and I guess that is normal to feel more liberated in that context. I try to keep her spirits up too and make her laugh whenever I can or whenever I think it might be appropriate.

It's spring break here and she's supposed to be leaving school. She's in my lab and in my class and the other students don't know. I just chose to treat her like there was nothing up even though we spent a few days last week planning what her research group was going to do after spring break. I didn't know how to say goodbye and didn't want to. I didn't want to make it real for her by doing that. So I didn't. But she ended up leaving all her stuff here and catching a ride with a friend to meet her parents in Boston. She is technically under the care of doctors there even when is being treated up here. They've tried some new stuff and clinical trials. It still isn't working. Last night she texted me to let me know that she is at 99.5 and that they are sending her to NYC to try one last thing. I am so rooting for that one last thing. I want so badly for her to text me: 98.5. To see it go down would be the most amazing thing.