True grit

Jimmy's white blood count is down to .7 and he doesn't feel so hot. We've only walked five laps so far and it was a bit of a struggle. The beeper on his IV kept going off all night, and people were constantly in and out of our room, and we didn't get much sleep, but it's only noon, and I'll nag him into some more walking later today.

There's a thin pale young man, twenty-one years old but looking younger, a couple of doors down from us, who had a bone marrow transplant for aplastic anemia four weeks ago. His mother has been up here with him the whole time, and she told me that they're leaving this afternoon.

We often see them in the hall walking, sometimes Chris by himself, wearing a baseball cap on his bald head and dragging his IV pole, but most of the time his mother is right behind him, pushing it for him. He's a fast walker, and easily does two laps to our one. Some days he's been too sick to even leave his room, but his mother said that he's somehow managed to clock in 85 1/2 miles since he's been here. We wish him well.