.....to the rescue. It was certainly a nice pick-us-up to have Ruth in town for a quick visit this weekend after not being able to travel home ourselves. She arrived with an IPOD shuffle on loan to me, pre-loaded with upbeat and inspirational music. It has been nice during my long hours in the transfusion chair. We had a couple of good meals together and Ruth was able to make a brief sightseeing tour (she had to go see the Apple store on 5th Ave) while Mom and I were at the hospital today for what has become my daily transfusion of platelets.
Ruth was able to donate platelets yesterday, but Mom could not because she has been to Honduras within the last year and it is considered a 3rd world country. It will take a few days to process Ruth's platelets and to find out if I can use them. It appears that my body is resistant to platelet transfusions - it just spits them back out of my system and my counts do not go up. Platelets are the cells that cause clotting and not having enough can result is serious bleeding. The platelet issue will certainly be a topic of discussion with the medical team this week, especially in terms of how it will be handled during the high dose chemo for my transplant.
On the bright side, my platelets rose from 8,000 yesterday to 12,000 today. I still have to get transfusions below 20,000 but at least I made it above 10,000. And my white blood cells have started to ramp up - they went from 2.3 Fri, to 3.3 Sat, and 6.0 today! Woo hoo! Maybe tomorrow I will hit 10! Normal range for white cells is 4.0 - 10.0, but it is common for people getting Neupogen to get up into the 70's! Hopefully I will be able to go on the collection machine tomorrow and there will be some stem cells floating around in the mix. I am so thankful for this positive movement after how bleak things felt on Friday.
I'll leave you with a picture of us women and the tulips that Ruth got me while out walking today (fresh flowers are for sale EVERYWHERE in New York). Since my white count is in normal range again, the infection patrol agent (Mom) has been able to simmer down and fresh flowers were allowed into the apartment.
Ruth was able to donate platelets yesterday, but Mom could not because she has been to Honduras within the last year and it is considered a 3rd world country. It will take a few days to process Ruth's platelets and to find out if I can use them. It appears that my body is resistant to platelet transfusions - it just spits them back out of my system and my counts do not go up. Platelets are the cells that cause clotting and not having enough can result is serious bleeding. The platelet issue will certainly be a topic of discussion with the medical team this week, especially in terms of how it will be handled during the high dose chemo for my transplant.
On the bright side, my platelets rose from 8,000 yesterday to 12,000 today. I still have to get transfusions below 20,000 but at least I made it above 10,000. And my white blood cells have started to ramp up - they went from 2.3 Fri, to 3.3 Sat, and 6.0 today! Woo hoo! Maybe tomorrow I will hit 10! Normal range for white cells is 4.0 - 10.0, but it is common for people getting Neupogen to get up into the 70's! Hopefully I will be able to go on the collection machine tomorrow and there will be some stem cells floating around in the mix. I am so thankful for this positive movement after how bleak things felt on Friday.
I'll leave you with a picture of us women and the tulips that Ruth got me while out walking today (fresh flowers are for sale EVERYWHERE in New York). Since my white count is in normal range again, the infection patrol agent (Mom) has been able to simmer down and fresh flowers were allowed into the apartment.
1 comment:
Needles & Vials all around -
I didn't want you girls to have all the fun by yourselves - I went to a Dr. today and got them to order an HLA test for me to see if I can be a stem cell donor. The technician wasn't quite sure which test that was so she drew enough blood for a couple of different tests. I was beginning to feel like a keg with a tap in it but she finally got bored with draining my blood!
The bad news is that the tests normally take a week to get the results back. I have already been onto the lab & am trying to get it marked processed as soon as possible.
I will let you know as soon as I get the results.
Yours in blood from Australia,
George A
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