Follow The Bouncing Platelets

More learning. When I met with the doctor a few weeks back, my platelet count had dipped to just above the low end of normal. 4 days later, they had dipped to slightly below normal. I was pretty sensitive about it as they were at the levels they were at about a month before my "sabbatical" started. To appease me, my favorite Nurse Practitioner scheduled me for another blood test yesterday.

They are inching back up and are now slightly above normal. All other blood counts are fine and well within the normal range.

What happened?

I found out that normally, platelets bounce around pretty routinely for everyone. The decrease in my platelet count was not within a normal decrease in the amount of time that had passed (November - February).

Unless....one has been treated by antibiotics in that time frame. And I had. I had an upper respiratory infection in January (just so I would fit in with the rest of Richmond at the time as everyone seemed to have some sort of wheezing and coughing going on) and was prescribed an antibiotic. They will cause platelets to drop.

What a putz.

When Bill Clinton visited the Pope, he noticed a red
phone on a small table in the corner of the office.

After several minutes of conversation, Clinton asked
the Pope what the red phone was.

The Holy Father told him that it was a very special
phone with a direct line to God. However, the Pope
told Clinton he rarely used it because it cost
$20,000 a minute from the Vatican.

Clinton accepted this explanation without another thought.

Later, when Clinton visited Ireland, he saw another
red phone in the Archbishop’s office. Being curious,
Clinton asked the Archbishop what it was used for.

The Archbishop told Clinton it was a direct line to God,
and he used it whenever he had a puzzling question or concern.

Clinton asked if the calls were quite expensive since
the Pope had to pay $20,000 a minute when he used
his red phone in the Vatican.

"Oh no," replied the Archbishop, "In Ireland it’s a local call."

"Would You Be Free From...."

Had a regularly scheduled checkup with my oncologist today. All is well. Every one of those visits includes a CBC (Complete Blood Count - looking for any abnormalities in the various parts of the blood "recipe."). All of my recent CBC's (say from reaching back to August) indicated that all parts of the blood had returned to "normal." Except for them pesky platelets. They are the last thing to bounce back from extensive chemotherapy treatments. The fact that all of the other parts of my blood "recipe" had returned to normal was a good sign the platelets would follow. Today's platelet count was at the same number they were when I was donating platelets on a regular schedule over 2 years ago and beyond. As a matter of fact, the last two times I ever donated platelets (in August and September of 2008) my counts were just barely above the minimum level the blood donor would accept - significantly lower than my "best" and lower than today's count. This means....further confirmation that the body has healed from the "alien" and from the chemotherapy.

However.....at this point, for me at least, one does turn a sensitive ear to hearing the statistics about the odds  of relapse and secondary cancer potential as a result of the treatments. I shared that with my doctor today and her response was, "You are no longer defined by cancer. You were shaped by it. It is no longer part of you. You need to live your life with that knowledge. God forbid, if there is a relapse, or formation of a secondary cancer, we will deal with that when it happens. There are other options that exist if it does. For now, you are doing what you need to do to keep it away or catch it early. That is, coming to us and letting us check on you on a regular schedule. Stick to that."

I knew all of that, but it was good to hear her say it. That's what I have been doing, but only she, another caregiver, or another "aliver" can say it with credibility.

Speaking of credibility, I told her that I have been telling newly diagnosed "alivers" that they should not pay any attention to five year survival rates for their particular cancer. As the treatment options have changed dramatically over time, there is no statistic that is based on an event that occurred five years ago that should apply to someone who is newly diagnosed. She agreed.

Hah, I got that one right!

"There is power, power, wonder working power...." - Lewis E. Jones

Up next, "Saints of Cancer" and "A Letter To A New "Aliver."