Happy Birthday.......

Babygirl is a teenager!

Because of a run of bad family car karma, we are still in Ambler (not our car this time - my nephew was going to drive to the park with us yesterday but my sister-in-law's car is off the road at the moment), so I drove them home last night.  Rather than driving home starting at 10:30 PM we spent the night.  So far pretty much everybody is still in bed.  I love it when I can run a group of teens into the ground!

The hospital called with her lab results yesterday morning.  The call came in just as I was having the following 'conversation' with my dyslexic nephew:  "You need to move to the left to turn left.  Left.  Move left.  No, your OTHER left!" so it took a moment to be free to speak LOL.

Her creatinine is 0.8 (which we knew). her hemoglobin is 10.1 - anemia slightly worse but relatively stable.  Her white count continues to drop.  Her neutrophil count is 1042.  1000 or less would have made them advise against being in a park full of people, and would have made them at the very least advise against the water slides, which would have been less than fun on a 90 degree day.  They did advise against the water rides like the log flume, which do not use chlorinated water and which can result in significant facial splashing.  So the good news is that her birthday weekend wasn't ruined.  The bad news is....yikes.  I HATE neutropenia.  She's starting school in five days with a low count.  I know they said she can go to school with any count over 500, but these are just numbers we are playing with.  How she handles exposures to diseases like influenza, whooping cough and gastroenteritis all depend heavily on her neutrophils being available to spot the threat and respond.

I'm assuming that they think the Rapamune may be playing a role in this since they decreased the dose by 40% despite a technically therapeutic level.  I didn't actually ask.  I was still in the middle of the "Right.  Left.  Whatever!" discussion.

Next appointment is on the tenth.  I will, I will, I WILL resist the temptation to repeat a blood count on my own between then and now.

DeeDee