Day 24 - Encouraging Blood Work...5 Days Until Next Bone Marrow Aspiration

On Friday, Theresa and Catherine made yet another trip to the doctor's office for her twice weekly blood test and another round of Vincristine. Important to note, prior to Friday, Catherine had not received a platelet transfusion since March 4th so I was expecting a transfusion in addition to the chemotherapy. Boy was I ecstatic when Theresa called me to relay the results of Catherine's blood work that morning. Her platelet cound had jumped to 175,000 from just 58,000 three days earlier. Given the life span of a platelet is generally 9-10 days, the results demonstrate Catherine's bone marrow was producing its own platelets. To give everyone perspective, on February 16th, Catherine entered Yale Hospital with a platelet count of just 10,000. Normal range is 150,000 - 350,000. Back in February, the leukemia cells were so tightly packed in her bone marrow (roughly 90%) that platelets were not being produced. Her hemoglobin remained in a healthy range while her ANC (absolute neutraphil count) which is a measure of her body's ability to fight off infection jumped to 470! Again for perspective, when we entered the hospital through the first 10 days or so, Catherine's ANC ranged between 0-8 which meant she was neutrapenic (no immune system). Generally an ANC count between 500-1000 provides people enough protection to fight off infection so hopefully her body can begin to fight off even simple illnesses like the common cold.

While Catherine's mood swings continue, we are beginning to see her have more of an understanding of what is going on. We have always said that she understands enough to be confused, but the doctors and social workers have told us to let her ask the questions rather than force the information on her. She is aware of the fact that she has a "blood infection" called leukemia, but while she had been telling us not to talk about it, this weekend she started asking us some questions and telling Theresa's friends that her doctors give her "pokies and tubies", but they don't really hurt. Hopefully her questions continue which should make all the doctors appointments and procedures go a littler more smoothly.

As we mentioned earlier, Day 29 of Induction is this Friday (just in time for March Madness). Catherine is scheduled for surgery at 12:00 at Yale New Haven Hospital. Catherine will undergo a lumbar puncture (to make sure her spinal fluid continues to be free of leukemia) receive chemotherapy in her spine as a preventative measure and her third bone marrow aspiration to determine how much leukemia remains in her bone marrow. Her blood has been leukemia free for the past 2 weeks while her leukemia concentration in her bone marrow has declined from 90% on February 18th to 5% on February 24th. Let's hope we go down to 0%!!