February 2, 2004 DAY #97
Friends,
We are back in San Diego for a couple of days. Taking care of some business, reading the mail, visiting, that kind of stuff. The office visit went well today. Nothing spectacular. Just ongoing goodness! The results from the Biopsy were not back in yet, so I will report on that on Thursday. The doctor said that there is no reason to think there will be any problem. Menchie and I went to visit Scripps Green Hospital BMTU today. We said hello to some of the doctors and nurses that gave me my Chemotherapy. We also saw the nutritionist there. We finally got some explanation of the 100 day thing from them. As I already knew, day 100 is some kind of arbitrary date that is kind of universally used to let people quit wearing masks and go off the neutropenic diet. One of the nurses told us that it is a pretty safe time interval for most bone marrow patients to have high enough WBC counts to be able to withstand infections, even though immunodepressants are still being used. I could look back at my updates, but I was probably at that stage at about day 30 or so. I really don't know what the WBC level required is. I will still have to exercise caution with my contacts with people and with the food I eat, but it is nice to know that in a couple of days, I can officially start eating a more normal diet, and go out without a mask. My next appointment is on Thursday. The doctor thinks that will probably be my last appointment with him at City of Hope. He is contacting my doctor at Scripps Green Hospital for followup care. We are tentatively planning to move out of our appartment at City of Hope on Thursday afternoon after the appointment.
On the medical front, still going well. My numbers are still drifting downward but the doctor is still happy. The rash is still fading slowly, it is almost gone from my hands now, where it was most severe. It is gone from everywhere else that I can see. My evening Prednisone was cut by another .25 down to 5 mg. My potassium was low today, but he just said to drink lots of orange juice and eat lots of bananas. We will see how that works.
Lab Results |
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Blood Cell Type |
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| WBC | 4.5 | 6.2 | 6.4 | 5.2 | 5.1 |
| RBC | 4.20 | 3.96 | 4.04 | 3.68 | 3.59 |
| HGB | 13.0 | 13.4 | 12.9 | 12.3 | 12.1 |
| PLT | 130 | 151 | 154 | 145 | 147 |
Next Update on Thursday! Have a great week.
Ted
tw@wilcoxent.com