Stable but low

Thursday 15 March

We had gone to the hospital for the weekly check-up with a fair amount of optimism. After all, Lara was feeling better by the day and there were concrete accomplishments to underscore it, such as the 4 kilometer walk last Sunday. But it was not to be. Disappointment came instead.

Lara is still anemic. The good news was that Lara's blood balance is stable, but with a downward pressure. Her red blood cells now stand at 2.77 per MicroL (should be 4.00), down from 3.09 last week. Her white blood cells are at 2.23 per MicroL (should be 4.00), slightly down from 2.25. Her hemoglobine should be at 12.0 per g/dL but now was at 9.7 (down from 10.6). The platelets had come down from 56 to 42 per MicroL (should be at 150). Worrisome are her neutrophils, essential to an effective immune system. They should be at a minimum of 0.5 to provide a base level of protection against pathogens. Last week they slipped underneath the critical level and were at 0.43; today they had dropped to 0.32. Lara is now super susceptible of picking up a bug somewhere and her body would have little to put up against it. 

The doctor was somber and had trouble hiding it. She found Lara looking "fort pale". The downward trend evident in the stats moved the doctor closer to the conclusion that we are looking at a rechute of the leukemia. We ourselves had the impression she is just waiting for the lab to come back with a positive ID of bad cells; which then would catapult Lara into another series of chemotherapy. Lara was asked if they could take another bone marrow sample today. We agreed on next week Thursday. Meanwhile we remain in limbo.

The reason we opted for another week's respit, is that we both have the idea that Lara's blood balance is bottoming out and is going to improve. We stay optimistic.