Nadir ?

The doctor had wanted to give me platelets yesterday, I thought it best we hold off another 24 hours and see if today saw any change. The logic being that if we transfused, the blood counts would be meaningless until we had at least another two more samples taken over as many days.

So with that in mind I arranged to come in today and get another test. Yesterdays counts were all lower than Saturday's sample. The platelet count being just 11.
The counts came back in a record time today, just fifteen minutes! There's now a system installed in the new hospital whereby the samples are placed in a vacuum tube and whizzed through 400metres of piping to the blood lab in the blink of an eye.

Lisa, the nurse who see's me each visit came back to me with a piece of paper in her hand. "Guess what today's count is?" she asked. I said that I was so stressed over the whole count situation I dared to guess. She insisted. I said "anything over 11 would be great, even 12 would be fantastic" She passed the paper to me... Platelets 12.
All other counts were also slightly improved over yesterday.

I don't want to get my hopes up too soon, but it does look like I've finally reached the Nadir (The lowest or turning point) in my blood counts. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do. (It's fantastic that my opinion is respected in these matters). I suggested that we don't give GCSF today or transfuse and that I return on Thursday for another full blood count. At that point all will be apparent. She agreed.

Roll on Thursday and another increase in my blood counts!

and still dropping

Platelets today were 11 and that's after Saturday's transfusion. White cell count was a low 1.83. It would be a fair comment to say that I am extremely anxious. Tomorrow I'm back in for another transfusion and a shot of GCSF.

I did some reading today on Stem cell transplant recovery times.
It put me in a better frame of mind. It said that patients can be in hospital for as long as 1-3 months post transplant. I left the same day (but did come back for a week with an infection). Recovery can take up to six months. I'm just waiting for my bloods to recover and I'll be raring to go!
Some patients report that they are still not back to pre-treatment health 1-5 years after transplant. So since it's only been 19 days and I feel pretty darn good, I don't think I'll complain too much... some higher blood counts would be nice however :)

Anxious..

After getting such good results from my blood test on Wednesday I was expecting my counts to look even better when I had a them tested on Thursday afternoon. I had changed my appointment from Friday so that I could go to Manfeild race track and help with testing of Murray O'Neil's race car, which I sponsor under the Flextech banner. I wasn't able to offer much more than my experience with tuning of the on-board computer. I left any sort of physical work to the others as my energy levels are far to low for anything more than just walking short distances.

Which brings me back to the blood test on Thursday.. all my counts were lower than they had been the day before. Why I have no idea. Maybe they were higher because of the GCSF growth factors and now they have stopped the counts are dropping.. maybe it's too soon for my marrow to have recovered.. the biggest fear is that the stem cells haven't taken. That would be a huge disaster, one I try not to contemplate..

I'm leaving for another blood test now. I'll post the results when I get back.


5 hours pass... It's amazing how long it takes for anything to get done in hospital. The blood test results took 2 hours to come back, they were expected in thirty minutes. The platelet count was a paltry 6 so I was given a unit of platelets. These were administered over a thirty minute period. It then took another 25 minutes of continuous beeping from the IV unit before I was seen to and a saline drip administered over a further ten minutes. Twenty more minutes of beeping passed before I was unhooked from that and sent on my way.

I spoke with the Doctor and she was not concerned at the counts. She said that the high of last week was from the GCSF and that I may get more (GCSF) when I come back in on Monday for another blood test. Today would be day 17 if I was having conventional chemo and waiting for my counts to return. It would not be until day 21 that I would expect to see counts climbing, so it's early days yet I guess.

..and better

Another good day! I went in for my blood test today and was very pleased to see that my white cell and neutrophil counts are now in the normal range! My red cell and haemoglobin counts are climbing which means my energy levels are too, and my platelet count although still low is not as low as would be expected, suggesting it too is starting to rally.

This is all very good news and means that I'm well on my way to recovery from the transplant with just 14 days having past. I'll have a final blood test on Friday which I'm expecting to be better again. At that point my PICC line will be taken out and I'll be a free man. From there every day should be better than the one before until I'm back to full health in a few months.

Day 13 post transplant.

It's now been almost two weeks since I received my stem cells back and it looks like my blood counts are slowly improving, yesterday I had a white cell count of 3.4. This is good as it means I am no longer at such a high risk of infection. Hopefully there will be no more week long stays in hospital!

Yesterday while having my blood tests done, one of the junior Doctors suggested that I would be all done by Thursday and could have my PICC line removed at that time. I pointed out that my platelets have not recovered yet and that I would not expect them to for another week. Though it would be nice if they rallied sooner just to put my mind at ease and that all is well. Once my platelet count starts to rise it's a sure sign that my bone marrow is functioning.

I'm feeling well most of the time but have the occasional bout of nausea. My red cell count is a bit low, so still no energy and I still get dizzy if I stand too quickly. But hey! I'm a heck of a lot better than I was a week ago! :)