It’s about time for a quick update on my medical situation, which I hope will be my last for a long while. I had been planning to  have a second corneal transplant (in my right eye this time) in October, but some low white blood cell counts made that inadvisable; it would have been elective surgery, in any event, and my eye doctor felt it would be better to wait till my immune system was more robust, which probably pushes the earliest date for this procedure into 2018. More worrying was the fact that my white blood cell counts had been steadily declining for a few months, and thus my oncologist wanted to see if there was an obvious reason for that phenomenon. I therefore had yet another PET scan (we’ve lost count, but reckon it was my tenth) and another bone marrow biopsy (my second, and I hope my last, since they really hurt). Neither showed any signs of recurrent lymphoma (B-cell or T-cell), nor any other indications of something sinister brewing. They ruled out lymphoma after the scan, and the biopsy revealed nothing resembling leukemia, which was certainly good news. There was no clear indication of what caused the dip in my WBC counts, which may have contributed to the very bad stomach upset on Hallowe’en (it felt like food poisoning to me) that sent me to the hospital for a couple of nights. After some neupogen (a drug which, when injected, boosts white blood cell production), my WBC counts have stabilized somewhat, though they remain a little below normal, and it seems that there is no cause for concern for the time being. Needless to say, I am relieved that this episode seems to be over; I have been lying low in recent weeks, in part to minimize risk to my immune system, and in part to brace for potentially very bad news that, thankfully, never came. I am eager to resume normal activities, such as they are in my very different post-transplant life, and am looking forward to a reasonably calm and pleasant holiday season. So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone; in case of scarcity, you can add an extra dose of gratitude to the mix on my behalf.