neutrophils

All posts tagged neutrophils

Yep… Neutropenic

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 30, 2010
Posted in: Family, leukemia, My LiFe. Tagged: , , , , , . 3 comments

Here we are… day 10 from the start of the last consolidation, and I am very neutropenic again.  Red blood cells and platelets are OK, and normal, but the WBC and neutrophils are low low low.  Nancy says the lowest they’ve ever been.  She said no big deal other than I have to be very careful with myself… the usual when I am neutropenic.  The biggest thing is infection, making sure I take my temp a few times a day since that would be the only sign of infection.  Nancy says this med, the chemo this time around, is new to me, so we really didn’t know how I would respond… and here it is.  The other thing is that my numbers were just coming up when I went into the hospital this last time, so the fact that they went down so fast isn’t probably that unexpected (this is my and Karen’s guess, Nancy didn’t say this).   Who really knows.  I’m hoping they are down, and will spring back faster than last time.  It took them a week or so to come up last time.  This could be the bottom, but then maybe not.  I don’t know how they could get any lower, but then I guess anything is possible.  Let’s just hope the RBCs stay up, as do the platelets.  No transfusions if I can help it.  :-)  And let’s hope the numbers come back fairly fast so I can get out and about again fairly soon.

Otherwise I am hanging at home, watching the US Open first round on TV, Karen is working and gathering stuff to get ready to pack tonight, and things are pretty normal around here.

Hope everyone is having a great day….

Disappointed And Venting

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 16, 2010
Posted in: Family, leukemia, My LiFe. Tagged: , , , . 4 comments

So Karen just got off the phone with Nancy, my chemotherapy case manager.  Seems all my counts went up except my neutrophils, which went down from 810 to 770.  Everything else… up.  What does this mean?  I’m still neutropenic.  Yep.  Still neutropenic.  No going out for me without a mask.  No trips to Costco or to the Juvenile Department to clean out my office.  No trip to Sleep Country  to try out mattresses (unless, of course, I wear a mask).  I am disappointed.  I wanted to be able to get some out of the house time before going back into the hospital on Saturday.  We think I can still go, though we aren’t totally sure.  I hope I can.  I mean, I don’t really want to go back in, but I do want to go back in.  Karen is leaving September 1 for England.  That means if I go in on Saturday we have exactly six days together back home after I get out before she leaves.  I’m just kinda bummed right now.  Nancy was going to call the oncologist on call to talk to her about my counts. I may go in for another draw before Thursday.  Maybe not.  We shall see.

I’m venting….

A Tale of Two Counts

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 9, 2010
Posted in: Family, Food, leukemia, My LiFe. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

Went in for the blood draw today.  Counts are in and it’s a mixed bag.  My hematocrit and hemoglobin (red blood counts… RBC) are up a bit.  My platelets are down a little, but still in the normal range.  My white blood count however, along with the neutrophils, are down again.  I’m still in the moderate range of infection, though my neutrophils are only a smidge above high danger of infection range.  I’ve been here before.  Hopefully we are bottoming out here and by Thursday they are coming up, but one never knows.  That’s the hope.  I feel pretty good (because of the still decent red blood counts) and it would be great to be able to get out of the house safely, without a mask (Had to wear one today when going to get the draw and have to every time I leave… which I don’t really unless I’m going to get a draw or go to the clinic). I am, once again, the boy (or in this case girl) in the plastic bubble.  LOL  Kev offered to get me the suit, the one that’s self contained with the helmet.  I said no, for now… :-)  I look at it all this way… the counts are down means the chemo is doing it’s job, which is what we want.  We want it to do it’s job so that’s a good thing.

My spirits are pretty good for the most part.  They go up and down as one would imagine, sometimes all in the same day.   I still have moments where the anxiety kicks in and then Ativan is my friend.  The anxiety doesn’t happen often anymore, but it does still happen.  It’s natural and very normal even though, for me, it’s a bit strange since I’m usually so mellow as a person.  But again, it’s pretty normal to have these anxiety attacks when going through something like this.  I get through them.  I always know what they are, so even during one I’m saying to myself… it will pass, it will pass.  And it always does.  I got on the treadmill today and then took a long hot bath.  Both good for the soul, and the nerves.

Karen just left for the store… more milk for cereal, batteries for the garage door opener, bread, ham for those panini sandwiches I love, and some cookies for me.   I didn’t crave sweets for a couple of months, but now every once in awhile I am craving them.

I’m watching the show Challenge on the Food Network (the Food Network and HGTV are my staples… along with the Travel Channel and whatever channel is showing a movie I might like to watch.  Earlier today I watched the Inside Man… not stellar, but watchable.  I’m not that picky.  I’ve even watched some Lifetime movies… yeah, I know… shudder at the thought.).  The challenge today is sandwich making.  Sandwiches are one of my favorite things to eat.  Yum yum!  It’s making me crave my favorite sandwich… the hot pastrami on challah bread from Kornblatt’s Deli on 23rd.  Now THAT is a sandwich.  SO good.  I will just add it to the list of restaurant foods I want when I can have them (can’t have food cooked in restaurants while I’m neutropenic… good thing my honey makes some tasty vittles!).

On that happy note… time to sign off of today’s entry and get down to figuring out what to watch (sandwich challenge is over)… and the winner is HGTV’s show Property Virgins.  You should check it out if you haven’t.

The Return of Neutropenia

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 5, 2010
Posted in: Family, leukemia, My LiFe. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

Went in for the bi-weekly blood test today and the results are in… I am, once again, neutropenic… yay????? (sarcasm folks!  LOL).  Good thing we were preparing for this and acting as if I was already.  The only no no we committed was that I went in for the blood test today without a mask on, and then we went into Starbucks and I didn’t have a mask on.  We told my caseworker this and she said that I am on the edge of neutropenia… 1.4 WBC and .715 on the neutrophils.  They are low, granted, and I am neutropenic, but they aren’t in the really really low category.  The good news is that the RBC counts are all still OK, so are the platelets.  At least I don’t need a transfusion, which I could’ve told them anyway since I don’t feel really really fatigued.  I do feel a bit tired, but really today I have been feeling pretty good.  I got a little stressed after finding out I was neutropenic, but hey… I’ll get over it.  We were hoping my numbers might be coming up from Monday.  My caseworker ventured a guess to say that she expected they might start coming up by Monday’s test.  I hope so.  The other issue is the herpes I have on my lip.  It started showing up today, which makes sense since this happened to me in the hospital when I was neutropenic.  My body can’t fight it right now so Karen is now on her way to the oncology pharmacy to get a new prescription for me… the same anti viral they gave me in the hospital to fight the lip thing.  It’s not that bad now, pretty small really… we just noticed it and told Nancy about it and she sprang into action.  We don’t want it to get bad so we are being proactive.  The other good news is that I still have no fever.

It’s an adventure this is…  Nothing really changes for us since we have already been acting as if I am neutropenic.  Here’s hoping the numbers rise as of Monday.  :-)

11

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 3, 2010
Posted in: Family, Friends, leukemia, My LiFe. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 comment

Tuesday… Blood results were as expected, I guess.  White blood cells and neutrophils are low, though I wasn’t in the neutropenic range yet.  We don’t know if they are still falling or going up, so we are acting as if I am neutropenic as they weren’t that low, but they were close enough.  My red blood cells are still in the normal range so I’m not needing a transfusion.  Hopefully I won’t need one.  I really don’t want to have to get the IV if I don’t have to.  I’m feeling a tad tired, but not really that bad, which is good.   The truth of the numbers will be told by the blood draw on Thursday.  We will at least know if the numbers are still doing down or coming up.  It will be good to know.

Karen has been and is still swamped with work.  So busy.  Loads going on, problems she’s needing to solve, etc.  At least she got some sleep last night.  Makes it easier for her to deal with all that’s going on.  She’s loving the weather right now… working outside on the back deck under the umbrella at our little table.  Her laptop fits and she’s got the phone with headset.  The dogs are both out there with her, laying on a blanket in the shade.  Rough life for the little dude and dudettie (one of Karen’s nicknames for Riley… there are a million of them, all cute).

Thanks everyone for following along, for sending those great vibes, thoughts, prayers, etc.  I know I keep saying this, but I feel them and they matter to me.  This journey has been a bit isolating (out of necessity) and getting notes and comments and such from all of you lets me know, and keep knowing, that I have such a big group of people out there who love and care for both Karen and I.  It matters to me and to us more than we can say.