Steve is feeling better but his blood counts are not improving a whole lot. Here is the break down of what has been happening. The white and red blood cells and platelets have been very low. Before he had the chemo on the 22nd he was already below normal (White 2.69, normal 3.28-9.29, Platelets 226, normal 143-398). His bone marrow only had six weeks to recover from the 5 months of chemo (MPT) before we started.
Friday his platelets were at 36, Saturday 22, Sunday 9, so he received some platelets via i.v. and the number went up to 18 that evening. Monday 42, Going up! Then today down to 26, so he received more platelets.
His white blood cells were .06 on Saturday, .08 on Sunday, .15 on Monday and .20 this morning. He needs to be at 2.0 to even begin harvesting his stem cells. I know these numbers are hard to understand but it helps me to write about it.
What all this means is his bone marrow is not working very well. Even with the neupogen shots (to boost his white blood cells) he's not where we expected him to be. His marrow could have been compromised by the melphalan he was on for 5 months. We were told this was a possibility, but its too early to tell if this is the case.
Thank you for your prayers and if you have any words of encouragement for us please post a comment.
Love Deanna
AKA Mrs. Liscom
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