Dr Appointment #1056

Ok well maybe I have quite reached the 1000 mark, but it sure feels like I've had a fair few trips to my doctor's office as well as the hospital.

I limped my way today to the car without tears....a notable improvement in my overall existence.    My sores have notably improved since Monday when I took the two week Neutrapren shot which meant to my mind that, my God, maybe their medication actually worked!    However, today's blood count indicates a very different story:  Neutrophils 0.0.    The Neturapren was supposed to boost the Neutrophils (cute alliteration, eh?).    Neutrophils are the WBC that help you fight infection.    So when I mentioned that the sores seemed to be getting better after the shot in spite of the counts, my doctor suggested "well maybe all the firemen are at the fire."    Seems like a cute colloquialism, but seems to me the satellite (ie the blood count) outta be able to see how many "firemen" (ie the neutrophils) there are.

This afternoon it dawned on me: since about Monday I've been dedicated to taking at least 10,000mg of Vitamin C per day.    I read somewhere that there was this study long, long ago where they administered 10,000 mg Vit C per day to the platelet-deprived and their counts went up until they stopped taking it, then when they resumed their counts went up again.    Vit C seems alot less harmless than my other options.  

As an exercise in meditation (please join me here), I found my 2008 blood counts (when I was a healthy young thing) and made Crayola reminders to paste up on my wall.     So, if you all don't mind, write these numbers on a card, put them on your mantle,  memorize them, or simply read them now until you forget them in about .12 nanoseconds (might as well be realistic).   Here's what we are looking for:  

Platelets: 250,000
White Blood Cells (WBC)  8,500
Red Blood Cells (RBC)   5 million
Neutrophils 73%

Don't drop your hat when you see today's numbers:

Platelets 2,000
WBC   800
RBC  3.18 million
Neutrophils 2.6%

SO yes, I had a platelet transfusion today and my doc wants to add YET ANOTHER drug to my regimen.   A drug, whose name is written on a piece of paper across the room which seems really too far away for me to do anything about it right now, that is supposed to stop the bleeding of my mucous membranes on any of the numerous orifices on my body.     If we can STOP the bleeding when platelets get low, then I can have more time between transfusions, which effectively could extend my life.   It is a race--body must cure itself before body reacts to all blood products leading to death.  So says the cheery medical establishment.

I'm gonna look up the drug, the side effects, and talk to dear Marla--a former AA survivor with numbers that looked like mine on this path to see what she thinks--before I agree.