I should say UP, up from a white cell count of 1.3 and Neutrophils of 0.3 yesterday to … a white cell count of 4.7 and Neutrophils of 2.9 today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You heard me, we’re way up.
Now you’re wondering how on earth did that happen. Well yesterday during “grand rounds”, which is when I see all the Doc’s on the Team, they decided to start me on a drug called GCSF. Also called Neupogen, which I have been on many times before, and for extended periods of time. This drug stimulates the growth of white cells, that is its primary purpose.
So after a week of my counts playing around 1.0, ONE shot, yes it was a needle, of GCSF and my counts hit a level that they haven’t seen since sometime in early October. Let me explain (this will be review for some but not all), once the Leukemia had “appeared” in my body and began to spread my white cell count began to rise accordingly as my body attempted to fight this foreign disease. A normal white cell count is around 4.0-7.0. The week I started Game 1 in November my white count was 40.0, which is obviously high but as far as Leukemia goes it wasn’t critical yet.
Of course that white count had doubled in a matter of 48 hours so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to shop myself around or to wrap up things “at the office”. Game 1 started on November 12th (1998) and my counts dropped to “nothing” and then they slowly returned in 38 days. As you know we then repeated this process two more times and now finally a fourth time, and throughout the past six months my white count has never returned to a level of 4.7. This is due in large part to the timing of each Game in relation to the given level of my white count, i.e. it was never important to wait until they hit a level of 4.7 to start another round of chemo.
Let’s get some perspective: You ask what does having a white cell count of 4.7(and Neutrophils of 2.9) mean? Nothing in particular YET, however at present my Neutrophils are higher than the required 0.5, and it is nice to see my white cells and Neutrophils at those levels. (It’s been a while!) As I mentioned I did have a dose of GCSF yesterday, that was stopped today so now the challenge is to see how my white count will act over the next 24 hours. It is expected to drop, but by how much is unknown and as you may remember I am required to have a Neutrophils count of 0.5 two consecutive days to be removed from isolation, and in my case due to my present condition I will most definitely make the extra jump to “hospital discharge” in that same day. (Knock on wood, cross fingers and toes, all that stuff)
So let’s be cautiously optimistic, I have half of what I need to be released from my isolated position on the 14th floor of PMH. With a few more Km’s on the bike and some luck I will hopefully get outta here tomorrow, but we’ll wait and see.
Either way you’ll hear from me tomorrow as soon as I know.
Geoff
#4
