Home from clinic! Platelets were 7K!..nope didnt see that coming! Anything below 20k gets infusion and his hemoglobin is 7.9. So he got both today...makes for a long one! Bone marrow biopsy results were in before he was done. Some good/positive news...his marrow % is close to 40 in most places. Its varied, some are less some are more. Normal (really...what is that anymore?!) would expect 50-60%; so not too far off. There are the cells present that make platelets and red blood cells...another positive. But that positive brings a question, if hes making those things, why does he still need so many infusions? So Dr Gilman (we werent supposed to see him this week since hes on service at hospital but he wanted to see us when he got the results). Wants to go back through his other recent tests and see what his spleen looks like. What is possibly happening is the spleen is filtering out the new stuff (for whatever malfunctioning reason it has.) If its enlarged or mi-shapen..thats whats happening. If thats whats happening what do we do? Well, we can either remove the spleen (another surgery and FOREVER increased risk of infection, though small risk; because spleen helps get bad things out) and all risks associated with surgery OR do radiation to the spleen to shrink it and hopefully get it back on track...but of course radiation has TONS of risks including reducing counts. So neither are happy/easy choices at this point. So he wants to take a week or two and see what the counts do. They seem to be improved slightly over the last few and maybe they will pickup. Why cant we give it longer than that? Well, when the red blood cells get destroyed/captured by the spleen it can lead to an over abundance of iron. The body cant dump the excess iron like it can other things to regulate. We will continue to pray they improve! Right now we dont need to act urgently so we will see what happens in a month! Kids start back in 2 weeks, hardly seems like time! Chris has to continue doing online classes at least the first semester and we will see where he stands with counts/energy. ~Michelle
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 22:14:46 +0000