Hey everyone, just returned from the hospital where I had my first bone marrow test in almost two years. It was relatively quick and painless, as Dr. Adams works quite well with the needle. We are still in an uncertain period, and will probably stay there until Friday morning at least.
Brief recap on the medical side of blood for group members. There are four main components as far as I’m concerned:
Hemoglobin – regular levels 140-160 – they are responsible for bringing oxygen to your muscles, a major influencer of energy
Platelets – regular levels 150-450 – they are responsible for clotting and influence bruising
White Cells – regular levels 4.0-7.0 – they are your immune-system
Neutrophils – healthy levels are over 2.0, acceptable is over 1.0, anything under 1.0 is considered neutropenic and “bad”
That’s your biology lesson for today. Of course that is fairly simplified and described only as I remember it. Since transplant my hemoglobin has never fully returned to normal levels – it has been pretty steady at around 120, my platelets have hit as high as 169, but are usually around 145’ish, while my white cells have been within normal range for much of the past two years, but always on the low side, and my neutrophils have been consistently over 2.0. It is common for white cells to take a while to move to the mid to high side of normal, as the other components of white cells, such as monocytes, can take a while to replenish.
Where we are
Sunday in Calgary my blood was down from where it normally was, hemoglobin = 117, platelets = 111, white cells = 2.2, and neutrophils = 0.7. On Monday here at home, my hemoglobin = 103, platelets = 94, white cells and neutrophils were the same.
Today my hemoglobin = 111, platelets = 90, white cells = 1.6, and neutrophils = 0.5.
So my hemoglobin has increased, but all else is down since Monday.
What this means
There is something happening in my blood which you can see from looking at the numbers above, what exactly that is remains unknown. I had a conversation with my family doc yesterday, who was working on 4 North A when I was first diagnosed. There are three main possibilities on her mind right now:
One possibility is that I have some viral infection right now that is bringing my counts down, another is that my counts are down from Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD), which many of you will remember as the disease I had after transplant. GVHD is common, and important to have after transplant, and it can be acute (short-term) or chronic (long-term). I haven’t had any traces of GVHD for almost 2 years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have it now.
The third possibility is that my leukemia has relapsed, or I have another form of cancer.
Dr. Adams was reviewing my blood work from the past many months when I arrived at hospital and he could see a decline since April, which was interesting to hear. I will meet with him sometime on Friday to “have a chat”, at which point we’ll hopefully have a better idea of why my counts are dropping, as he will have had a chance to look at my bone marrow samples, and from there I’ll begin to tackle my next challenge, whatever it may be.
My mindset right now is a little all over the place. I’m not sure what all of you thought upon reading my messages from the past couple of days, but the thoughts of relapse have crossed my mind more than once, both prior to conversing with my Doc and after. It has been something that I have thought about at various points since my Transplant, and each time I go through a period of health struggles, hospital visits and blood tests those thoughts find their way into my head for some amount of time. No doc is willing to guess at what’s happening in my blood, and I haven’t asked them to give me a prediction from their crystal ball, but hopefully this period of not knowing will end on Friday.
As I said yesterday, I do believe that everything in your life happens to you for absolutely the right reason. For now please know that I am comfortable, a little disappointed that I’m going to miss a planned golf/fishing trip with my dad, brother and Eaton uncle’s this weekend, but as I said there is a reason I’m not going. My mindset is sound, I’m open and ready to learn about my next challenge, and from there I’ll look to tackle it.
Whatever happens over the next 48 hours you can count on me sharing it.
You’ll hear from me soon.
Always…
Live Life. Love Life.
Geoff
