Aah the waiting game.. sigh.. I'm stuck in my room for another day of isolation. WBC has dropped further to just .6 (normal 6.8+), however my platelets have climbed slightly to 32 (normal 150-450). I'm expecting to see a big improvement tomorrow. In fact I'm really hoping to see some sort of miraculous climb in counts over the next three days, as I really want to fly home on Monday as scheduled.
Last night was a bit of a worry, I had been feeling hot one minute and cold the next. So I asked the nurse to check my temperature. Sure enough I was running a fever. It looks like it was probably just a reaction to the growth factors, but it could just as easily have been an infection.
I'm severely neutropenic at the moment, so any sort of infection can run rampant in just a few hours. Ignoring it and going to sleep could prove fatal. There's nothing quite like waking up dead in the morning to ruin your day!
This morning I've had another round of antibiotics and IV's, plus another Granocyte (GCSF) injection to stimulate neutrophils (a type of white blood cell).
I've been a proponent of the healing power of honey for quite some time. This week I've been adding Manuka Honey to my green tea to ward off any repeat of the problems I've had in the past with mouth ulcers and infection. Today I read an item on an internet news site that Canadian scientists have discovered that some forms of honey, including NZ's Manuka honey is far more potent at killing bacteria than even the most powerful antibiotics available. This included the drug resistant strains of the so called super-bugs, such as MRSA. Gee ya think!
I wonder if the staff at Wellington hopsital's radiation dept will take the study by the Canadian scientists a little more seriously than they did when I told them about the healing properties of manuka honey earlier this year?
There is no shortage of studies and articles about the amazing healing, anti-fungal and antibacterial properties of manuka honey. It's been a Kiwi home remedy for years, now the world is finally catching on. I wonder how the big drug companies are going to react to that? No money to made there! and it works better than anything they currently have.. Hmm.
On a similar note, while doing some research on platelet counts, I discovered some articles on the tropical disease 'dengue hemorrhagic fever' which kills countless people through-out the world and which has no vaccine and no cure. Apparently it has been treated quite successfully by thousands of sufferers by making a tea from the leaves of the Tawa Tawa plant. It's been said that there is a cure for every disease to found in the plants of the world. Sadly if there is no money to be made from discovering and cataloging these cures, many of which have been used for centuries by indigenous people, then it is unlikely that they will ever be researched and used in mainstream medicine.
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