First of all, a disclaimer. I am not a doctor. At least, not the kind that actually helps people. So all of the following is probably wrong, but it is enormously satisfying to me and it's my blog.
I figured if I didn't update now, I probably wouldn't update until October or something, so here goes. I had my blood draw this morning. My white blood cell count went up to 3.3...still low but fairly normal (although below my own average) for me. Neutrophils almost doubled since my last blood draw and are well within the ordinary person's normal range. Hell, I may have more neutrophils than you at the moment. Platelets are low-ish, but normal for me (although, again, below my average). The mystery that remains is this: how on earth I spent 3 days frolicking around at 8500-9000 ft with a hematocrit of 28%. Low normal for a healthy person is 34%; below 27% and I get a transfusion. So that is still oscillating downward, along with all my red blood counts (hemoglobin and red blood count as well). I guess stunning scenery can counteract the effects of anemia.
I took a minute to contemplate all my data in my handy dandy spreadsheet and graphs and a couple of things stood out. First, my white blood cells regularly peaked at the beginning of each month since January (to between 5 and 8), then declined throughout the month to around 3. I'm guessing this may be due to the intrathecal chemo I received at the end of each month, followed by a short course of steroids, which inflates blood counts (releases your blood cells out of the marrow into the blood stream). This cycle stopped in March, when I stopped the chemo. I had another WBC peak in mid-May, when I got sick with a cold. I could assume that at this point, WBCs were flooding out of the marrow to do their thing with the virus. Go team! Counts then went back to the low 3s. They started to decline again when- you guessed it (or perhaps didn't guess it at all)- I started to taper prednisone, my other steroid dose. How about that? Neutrophils follow the same pattern.
The second thing I noticed was that all my blood counts crashed and my kidney number got awful soon after I got pneumovirus. I guess that sometimes happens with viruses, which I realize is the opposite of what I said earlier. But that's the beauty of the human body! Its data can fit any explanation you want it to. Especially when you have a rigorous sample size of 1. I currently have no hypothesis for the RBC issue but I intend to look into it.
Anyway, that's that. See you hopefully a few times in September- that's when I have my one-year follow-up in Seattle. Let's not talk about that just yet.
5 comments:
Please note the posting time of this blog. At 11:02 Jessie enthusiastically came into the bedroom and interrupted my reading time to tell me about her findings. (Note - I was reading War and Peace whilst smoking a pipe - just for the visual). I received an extensive lecture about all her findings including the R^2 value of each data set. Oye vey. There is a reason Jessie is a scientist.
I can't love it enough that you have graphed your blood draw values! I only had a simple excel spreadsheet of Chris'. Tracking the data made me feel more in control in such an out-of-control situation. I loved reading about your camping trip - it brought warmth to my heart.
Let's get you tracking female iguana numbers in the BriBri Reserve of Costa Rica. I think it might just be at least as satisfying as hematocrit numbers. This type of behavior describes perfectly the difference between "scientist" and "science teacher."
Thanks for the back to back blogs. I love that you made the graphs. Really though, how could you not?
I also loved that the unwavering need to see what's over the next ridge is so deeply ingrained in you. I am sure that it has played a huge part in all the ridges that you keep surpassing.
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