🌀Mood: Relieved. Worn down. Grateful. Rebuilding.

I got out of the hospital a few days ago, on Day 15.

Ten days inside… and it felt like an eternity.

At one point, I told someone I felt like a caged animal.
No real sleep. Constant interruptions. Just trying to get through each hour.

So being back at the apartment feels like a breath of fresh air.

But the biggest shift didn’t happen when I walked out of the hospital.

It started a few days ago.

After hitting the bottom… my numbers started to move.

My neutrophils (ANC) went from:
0 → 50 → 350 → 1,110 → 750

And it didn’t stop there.

2,250 → 2,880 → 3,800

And that matters more than I can fully explain.

ANC is the part of your white blood cells that helps fight infection.
When mine was at 0, I had no immune system. None.

So seeing that number rise means my body is starting to rebuild.

There’s a word for this: engraftment.

It means the stem cells they gave me are starting to work—
settling in, doing their job, creating new healthy cells.

One of the milestones is reaching an ANC of 500 for two days in a row.

And I did that.

Even with the drop from 1,110 to 750… it still counts.
Still over 500. Still moving in the right direction.

After everything my body has been through…
this feels like the first real sign that it’s coming back.

I’m still exhausted.
Still recovering.
Still not anywhere close to normal.

But I can finally say this:

I came out of the valley.

And it’s making something very clear to me—

You really do have to get all the way to the bottom…
before you can start going back up.