So the hemoglobin is the most important number as far as I'm concerned. That's the red blood cells, and if you remember, you get dizzy and fall down if that number gets too low (like 5.3) The increase in hemoglobin also shows that the disease that prevents the production of red blood cells is being wiped out. If there was a pre-chemo chart for this, it would've shown a steady decrease over the last year or more. The norm for me should be 14 or 15, so I've got a ways to go, but 12/29's number of 9.8 was a new high, and the 1/5 number should be over 10!
The white blood cells represent the immune system, or your ability to fight infection and disease. The chemo drugs knock this down a lot, and this is probably what most of the shots Kathy gives me are for, as 'boosts' to keep it up after and between rounds.
The platelets are what you need for blood coagulation. Before I started the chemotherapy treatments, the doctors and staff were cautioning me not to cut or bruise myself. I guess I was about the same as a hemophiliac at that point. We've gotten a few 'do-it-yourself' shots for this as well, although as you can see on the chart the platelets rebound pretty well after about a week.
You might notice the early weeks of the charts are missing some data; that's either because we didn't get a copy at the doctor's office, or perhaps because it got lost in the shuffle in the early days of all of this.
And that's one of the reasons why I think it took me so long to start posting again: the weekly checkups, shots, chemo rounds, etc, have all become the new Normal for me, and as such the whole routine just seemed kind of repetitive and well, boring.
But things are going well, so that's news enough I guess. And I'll be posting more and keep updating the charts from week to week, as well as any other info that seems interesting.
Like this: sharp eyed TV viewer and my nephew Tyler was watching a rerun of the doctor comedy 'Scrubs' and one of the subplots concerned a guy who seemed to be a hypochondriac who kept coming in and complaining that he didn't feel right in one way or another. In order to get him to stop coming to the hospital and taking up valuable doctor time, they threaten to give him a bone marrow test, which consists of 'sticking an enormous needle all the way through your hip, and it's very, very, very, excruciatingly painful' Of course the guy agrees to the test, and it turns out he has: Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia! So if everybody had been paying more attention to this show six years ago it would have been obvious what was wrong with me. Or maybe not; they did even admit on the show that there are almost no symptoms for WM. Anyway, it seems like there's reruns of Scrubs on every other hour, and it's Season 2, episode 12- watch for it! Good catch , Ty!
If anyone else out there hears anything about WM out there anywherer let me know and I'll post it here!
