Falling Numbers

Thursday 22 March

We were in Saint Luc early this morning. In an email last night, Lara's treating physician had urged her to be on time since two labs were poised to look at her bone marrow samples, so the puncture had to be performed before 10:30 AM.

As we were summoned to cabine 4 - a small office equipped for simple procedures - the results of the blood test were not even available yet on the hospital Intranet. Always present (and weighing in) during the initial doctor-patient conversation, I make myself scarce once the physical examination begins; the more so, since during the last two visits there was also a trainee present from the Medical School. So I waited outside in the corridor, burying myself in the morning's newspaper.

As Lara came out, her face behind a mask, she was shaking her head a lot, looking me in the eye. Yes, they had done the puncture, she said, but her stats were in free-fall. She showed me the print-out, which I compared in my mind to what I remembered from a week ago: red blood cells down now to 2.39 per microL, white blood cells to 1.78, platelets to 35, neutrophils to 0.23 and hemoglobine to 8.5 g/dL. All of the stats way, way too low. This was not looking good.

Lara had to stay downstairs and was administered one unit of red blood cells to crank up her HB and improve the oxygenation in her lungs. All in all we were in the hospital for seven hours, Lara breathing all the while through her mask. We were kindly offered some hospital food for lunch.

We went home in a mood of forced optimism, waiting as we were for the dropping of the other shoe: the doctor was going to call us tonight or tomorrow on the results of the cytology testing in the two labs. She had made clear that we wanted to be sure Lara was indeed no longer in remission and that the disease had come back. No treatment would be started without such positive identification.

The waiting is what grinds us down, folks. We refuse to believe the worst before the verdict is in. Biding our time, we take a walk in beautiful spring weather, the trees and bushes budding into bloom.

The perfidious call came at 7:30 PM. Lara took it like a trooper. Both labs concurred that they had seen acute leukemia blasts in the bone marrow to warrant the conclusion the disease had returned - perhaps in a slightly different variation. Treatment is to start promptly, probably Monday, and more particulars about the chemotherapy are to follow. Promptly because Lara is now free from infections.

We are digging in for the long haul. It will be summer by the time she finishes three treatments. If everything goes off without a hitch.