I saw Dr. Klimek this morning, as per my posting yesterday, and then had a CAT scan in the early afternoon, in anticipation of my meeting next week with Dr. Zelenetz, the lymphoma guru.
The good word is – my white cell counts are up, and without any neulasta booster. Last week my WBC count was 2.2 – this week 3.8 (a low normal is 4.0). And the key component of the white cells – the Abs Neut.’s – rose from 0.9 to 2.2 (the normal range 1.5 to about 4.0).
Brigid and I were really surprised when the nurse came in with the results – so surprised I asked if the test could be mistaken!
Dr. Klimek was happy with the results – all along she’s been saying she thought my counts would eventually go up, and now she appears to be right.
If I were to graph out my counts for the five weeks since the last shot of neulasta, it would show that the last two readings prior to today’s there was a leveling off. In prior periods they had gone a little lower.
So now they’ve picked up and hopefully not a fluke. I will have another count done next week as part of my Dr. Zelenetz appointment, and we will see.
Also, I thought Klimek would want to do a bone marrow biopsy today, but she said none was planned. I will see her again in eight weeks, while continuing to have blood counts done every Friday. And she plans on doing a phone conference with my ENT physician, Dr. Zeitlin about my persistent respiratory/sinus infections.
Needless to say, we’re quite pleased with today’s results.
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