It’s been 21 days of living inside the belly of the hospital beast—specifically LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City’s oldest medical facility and my current home base. And while I haven’t chopped down a door with an axe (yet), the slow descent into hospital-induced madness has definitely begun.
In this week’s video update, I share what it’s like surviving round after round of chemo, why my blood cells are acting like flaky co-workers who don’t show up when you need them, and how a 120-year-old hospital somehow became both a treatment center and my temporary haunted Airbnb.
A Brief and Slightly Dramatic History of LDS Hospital
Let’s talk about this place. LDS Hospital was founded in 1905 by the Relief Society, the women’s organization of the LDS Church. That means this building has been around for everything from the Spanish flu to the moon landing… to now hosting me in a backless gown with an IV pole that squeaks like it’s haunted.
Before it became LDS Hospital, it was actually Deseret Hospital, founded in the 1880s. It shut down due to funding, but the Relief Society brought it back to life like a phoenix made of antiseptic and casseroles. By 1920, it was training nurses and becoming a leader in modern medical care. So yeah—there’s a legacy in these walls. And now there’s me, leaving a legacy of snack wrappers and sarcastic commentary in Room 511.
The Blood Report: What My Body’s Been Up To
You hear a lot of terms in cancer care, but I want to break down the essentials. Here’s what I’m tracking almost daily—and how I’m doing so far:
Platelets (PLT)
Role: Stop bleeding and form clots.
Normal Goal: 150,000–450,000 (hospital wants me at 50K+)
March 11: 16,000
April 1: 137,000
Translation: If I sneezed too hard, I could bruise my soul. We’ve since improved, but every count still feels like betting on a drunk tightrope walker.
RBC – Red Blood Cells
Role: Carry oxygen to tissues.
Normal Range: ~4.7–6.1 million/mcL
March 11: 31.5
April 1: 28.2
Translation: Walking to the bathroom = cardio. Oxygen has become a luxury item.
WBC – White Blood Cells
Role: Fight infection.
Normal Range: 4,500–11,000/mcL
March 11: 14.9
April 1: 1.1
Translation: My immune system was either fighting hard or overreacting like your aunt on Facebook. We’re watching the trend, but high counts often reflect leukemia activity or post-treatment bounce-back.
ANC – Absolute Neutrophil Count
Role: Infection-fighting white cells.
Normal Goal: Above 1.5
March 11: 1.9
April 1: .03
Translation: Neutropenic. Avoiding fresh fruit, raw veggies, and most forms of joy. Under 1.0 means I’ve been on high alert for infection risks. This one is tricky as I needed a complete reset.
Fibrinogen
Role: A key protein that helps form blood clots.
March 11: 78
March 21: 150
Translation: This is actually trending so well that they stopped testing. My body’s figuring out how to clot again, so that’s one less thing to panic about when I bump into a chair.
Blast %
Role: Immature white cells crowding out the good ones.
March 11: 75%
March 19: 1%
Translation: This is the main culprit in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. High blasts = bone marrow overrun. Chemo is doing its job to flush these out, which is why we’re keeping a close eye on how fast my marrow starts regenerating the good guys.
Trends, Progress, and What It All Means
Some days, the numbers jump and give us hope. Other days, they stagnate or dip and remind us how fragile this process really is. But here’s what I’ve learned: You can’t just treat the body. You have to treat the spirit too. Which brings me to…
The Soundtrack to Surviving
When you’re stuck in a hospital for weeks on end, you start associating emotions with lab values… and Taylor Swift lyrics. For example:
“Now we’ve got problems / And I don’t think we can solve them…”
— Bad Blood, obviously.
Music has been a lifeline. A form of therapy. It's a way to shake off the anxiety while you wait for numbers to load on a nurse’s iPad. I’ve built a Spotify playlist with all the songs that have helped me breathe deeper, cry better, and smile through IV flushes.
Check out the APL Playlist here:
And I want to hear from you.
What’s your go-to healing anthem?
Drop it in the comments, and I’ll add it to the playlist. It doesn’t matter if it’s Rage Against the Machine or Norah Jones—if it’s gotten you through a hard season, I want it on this soundtrack.
Thanks for being here. For reading. For caring. Every comment, every share, every song—this is what keeps me going.
More updates to come. Until then…
No Quarter
-Tyler
