Happy Sunday everyone!
Sorry the blog has been so quiet but there has been very little to report on. That is still pretty true today, but I know there are several people that are curious as to what's going on so I thought I would write a short update.
It's day 23 and there is a little progress. Not a lot, but a little. Blood counts today are:
WBC - 1.5
Hct - 27.2 (low but not giving red blood today)
Platelets - 14 (very low platelet count)
ANC - .400
Since the last post the ANC hasn't climbed at a rate that is satisfactory so they have started Alex on neuopogen. This is not quite the same as before. Instead of shots they are doing it I.V. which is much better for Alex. Not sure why they don't always do it this way, but BMT patients always get this in an IV form. Alex's platelets are also really low today so she will get another bag of those. Hopefully no reactions!
The doctors stopped by today and were encouraged by the ANC level from today's labs and are quite confident that we'll see the much anticipated .500 mark tomorrow. Let's hope! To be considered "engrafted" she really needs to hit this mark for 3 consecutive days, but our doctors say that 2 days is fine and think if it hits tomorrow we can pretty much say the same thing.
One cool thing that will happen in a few days... Day 30... is a Chimerism test. You can read about it HERE This is a test that will show how many of her new cells are the donor cells and how many of them are her own. We are really hoping for a big percentage of these to be donor cells. It seems we are always waiting for something. But, it does appear that things are moving along. It'll just be nice to find out that the donor cells are working and not Alex's own bone marrow. With a leukemia that has been so resistant, we really don't want her own bone marrow coming back. SO... 7 days and we'll get that test done. I'm not sure how long it takes to get the results of that. I should have asked... :0)
That is about all that's going on here. They have moved the IV anti-rejection drug, Prograf, to an oral form. It's still not quite dialed in yet. Hopefully they get the dosage on the right track soon. I talked to the doctor about this today and why it's so hard to get the right level. He said that there are many changing factors in the drug. How it metabolizes changes daily. There are many changing things going on in the liver that compete with it... and it always has to be adjusted. He said this will be ongoing until she no longer needs to be on it. They are also switching over some of the prophylactic antibiotics to oral meds. This all needs to happen in order to come home. Hopefully she tolerates all of them well.
I hope everyone has a great Sunday. And I hope I can update tomorrow with a 500 ANC count! Dang it!!! Let's get this show on the road!
Please keep sending good blood cell vibes!
Here's Alex's white blood cell in a petri dish with little red blood cells. Cute or what!?
These are little "Mad Cow" cells... You can get almost anything in a petri dish. You can find them HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment