Beth got a call from Dr. Rossetti’s office again yesterday; her hemoglobin had dropped to 8.2, and so that means another transfusion. There seems to be some rhyme and reason to the way this is going. Cycles of Vidaza are indicated by the arrows above the chart.
- Hemoglobin: At present, nothing seems to help this except for transfusions. However, these take about 100 days to manufacture, and we are hopeful to see some improvement now, after three cycles of Vidaza.
- White Blood Cells: Vidaza seems to whack them, but they recover quickly.
- Platelets: Vidaza seems to have a bit of a harsh effect here, too, although most recently, her platelet count has been falling anyway.
- Neutrophils: These are very good white blood cells – first responders to bacterial infections – and these are well into the normal range, after having been far off at one time.
- Monocytes: Again, Beth has “chronic myelomonocitic leukemia” (CMML), and so getting these into the normal range appears to be a good thing.
Please note that none of the above is a genuine medical opinion, just the musings of someone who has an interest in figuring out what these numbers mean.
Click on the chart to view a larger version. The last column is mostly blank because I don’t get all of these numbers right away. But Beth did get a blood sample on Monday and we do know that she needs this transfusion.