On the day before yesterday I wrote: " I don't know if I was more disappointed that my platelet level is going down, or that, although I was just at the threshold for another platelet transfusion, my HemOnc wanted to wait until tomorrow for a new blood draw to decide on transfusion." Today I am here to say, "Always listen to your HemOnc!" I had a blood draw yesterday, and my blood counts are rebounding! Hemoglobin is up a bit; platelets are up to the point that I will need to be back on blood thinners because of my deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and my neutrophils are coming back! Neutrophils mean immunity, and their presence is tracked by a datum dubbed Absolute Neutorphil Count (ANC). And mine is on the rise!! And that makes me feel better physically and emotionally. Typically, when my blood counts begin to rebound, the numbers come up pretty quickly. So, I anticipate that platelets and ANC will be into the normal ranges by Monday, just in time for my return...
One of my favorite passages of Scripture is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7). I love it because, as our Pastor Ben preached last Sunday morning, it turned the world upside down. Ben's sermon covered the Beatitudes. The English word Beatitude is derived from the Latin beātitūdō , which can be translated roughly "perfect happiness." The Gospel according to Matthew, like the rest of the New Testament, was written in Greek, so what we have in our English Bibles has been translated from Ancient Greek, and sometimes something may be lost in translation. The word translated "blessed" derives from the Greek word μακάριος (makarios) which means something like "supremely happy" or "to be congratulated." Sorry for the detour into linguistic nerdiness, but I want to help you understand what I am writing about today. As Ben spoke about the Beatitudes this morning, he made the point that they are not a list of virtues. That is to say...
Today is my 75th birthday, and although I wouldn't have planned to spend it in the oncology department, it is already a day to be celebrated. I received a unit of red blood cells this morning, because my hemoglobin was down. That is a double gift, because blood is the gift of life, and when my hemoglobin is low and then gets a boost in RBCs, I instantly feel more invigorated. In addition, my morning labs had some very encouraging news. My platelet counts have tended to go down on a regular basis. The last two days, the count was steady at 10, which is the threshold below which I usually get a platelet transfusion. Today the count jumped from 10 to 14 in 24 hours. One of the lead nurses told me the other day that, in her experience, when you see the platelet count going up spontaneously, it means the recovery phase has begun. Now, I ask you, could there be a better birthday present? Another nurse brought me cookies and a third brought me Peets coffee that he keeps for m...
Comments
Post a Comment