Family and friends,I'm going to let you read from Bob's blog first and then I'll tell you what the doctor said regarding the blood abnormalities...
From Bob's Blog:
Day One of chemo...
I arrived today at the Bethesda Memorial at 9:30. I was in my room by 10:30, not bad by hospital standards. They did the usual panel of blood work. I received my first IV bag of chemo at 2:00pm. I'll get the next one at 2:00am. so, not much sleep tonight. How consolidation chemo works is you get chemo twice on days 1, 3, and 5. You are off on days 2 and 4. If all goes well, I should be released sometime Saturday morning.My Oncologist told me they found some abnormalities in my blood cells while doing their review. She thinks it is due to some of the drugs she has me taking to aid in white blood cell formation. She's not too worried, but she is going to do further testing to verify that he cancer is not back. I should get the results in 3 days. I have gotten semi used to stuff like this and just try and roll with it. But, it's always in the back of your mind that you could be sick again.The chemo doesn't really make me feel worse for a couple of days. I feel fine right now. Well, fine for being on round 5 of chemo. I'm still tired most of the time and my joints are killing me. For exercise I took three walks around the whole floor. I would guess the distance to be 1/8th of a mile. I don't have much stamina right now. I'm hoping to improve that once I get this last round of chemo done.
Michele- Okay, Bob is in good spirits today. Bob's doctor called me yesterday and wanted to fill me in on the blood abnormalities. She first wanted to start off by saying that she was very happy that Bob's counts had recovered so quickly. His hemoglobin was at 11.1, platelets at 244,000 and white cells within normal ranges. The problem was that when they did the initial blood test they found that Bob had 1% blasts in his blood. The definition of "Blasts" is the following:
Blasts: Immature blood cells. Leukemic blasts do not grow and age normally; they proliferate wildly and fail to mature.
Bob's oncologist said first that everyone has blasts in their body, but that most likely Bob's could be due to the fact that because his counts recovered so quickly the blood cells didn't have time to mature, or because of the Nupogen injections this could possibly cause the increase in blast cells. She is sending his blood off for full spectrum testing but that it could take as long as week to get the results back (although she has expedited them). She had originally thought to ask Bob if he wanted to go back home and wait for the results because in the off chance that it comes back positive for the Leukemia (which she does not think is the case) Bob would unfortunately need to have re induction chemo again and it would be time to consider a stem cell transplant. Bob is very positive and knows that this is just an anomaly and wants to continue with his last round of consolidation chemotherapy so that he can finally be done. I cannot blame him. 6 months of this is tiring for me, I cannot even begin to think how hard it must be for Bob.
So now we just sit and wait for the results. Both the doctor, Bob and myself feel that it is not the Leukemia coming back.
Please continue to keep Bob in your thoughts and prayers and I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.
Love and thanks,
Michele
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I just wanted to tell both of you that I had anomalies show up in my blood work during my final consolidation that have still not recovered over a year later, and it had NOTHING to do with a return of AML. It was very scary, and at times still is, but keep plodding forward, and keep the faith that you're still a remission!!!
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