Good news, bad news

The good news is that Beth’s white blood cell count is up above 3.8 — given how it had dropped over time with the Vidaza treatments, this makes it seem as if it’s rocketing up. Her white counts haven’t been at this level since back in August. Her hemoglobin level was up to 10.4 — I think that may still be up from her transfusions the other day, but I’m not sure of that.

The bad news — and I admit, this is the non-glam part of the whole deal — the mucositis / mouth sores are just not very pleasant at all. She’s being treated with Acyclovir, which “is used to decrease pain and speed the healing of sores or blisters”; she’s also being treated with regular use of a couple of different mouth rinses that help to function kind of like salve on a burn.

Later, we’ll be going on a walk around the floor. She’s at the point now where getting up and about will help speed the healing process.

Mouth sores

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Beth has only been having small fevers, and her blood pressure is still elevated (154/107 this morning), but her biggest annoyance continues to be the mouth sores. I don’t know if what she’s got at the corner of her mouth counts, but in the photo above, the white lining under her tongue is part of the “lining” that was built up by the Kepivance, to protect against mucositis (mouth sores) and which now seems to be peeling off like so much snake skin.

We hear Beth could go home “soon”, so I’m going to go in to work for a few hours today and just play it by ear.