[Greg H]

Tuesday's results at the lab were a mixed bag. Hemoglobin was at 8.1, better than the 6's I've been turning in, but lower than I had hoped. More about that later.

Platelets were down from 78 to 60, but that's a heck of a lot better than the 42 from a couple of weeks ago. My platelets are up and down like a roller coaster, giving me the suspicion that things aren't all sorted out yet in the platelet factory. Still, I'm not going to complain about a 60.

On the bright side of road, my absolute neutrophils are up to 760, compared to 600 a week ago and 500 two weeks ago. I am looking forward to the continuation of this trend, which will eventually get me off the twice daily 500 mg dose of ciprofloxacin. Fortunately, I have had none of the more dramatic digestive complaints associated with cipro -- no nausea, etc. But it does seem to make my stomach a bit queasy after meal time, and it messes mightily with my consumption of butter, cheese, and cream, which is fairly essential to my breakfast and lunch. Calcium interferes with the absorption of ciprofloxacin.

Lymphocytes are gradually coming back, up to 190, versus 100 last week and the week before.

Now, back to the hemoglobin. I'm down to 8.1 eleven days after a triple unit transfusion right before Christmas. I'm very tolerant of low Hgb, so I could hang on for another week or so, getting a CBC on Tuesday and a transfusion toward the end of next week.

But, I've dropped 1.5 points in a week. If that pace keeps up, I'll be at 6.6 next Tuesday. That math got me thinking: If I'm going to wind up with more transfusions than I'd like for the next month or so, why not keep the Hgb in the 8's and 7's most of the time, where I'm more comfortable, instead of in the 7's and 6's, where I get serious blood pounding in the ears and wake up feeling like I've been punched in the face?

So today (Friday) I'm in the Same Day Surgery Center waiting for two units of PRBCs, hoping that will get my Hgb up in the mid to high 9's, and I'll feel energetic using my chainsaw next week to cut up the big oak tree that my neighbor has promised me for firewood.

Another bright spot in the labs, I think, is that my absolute reticulocyte count is up to 77.4, smack dab in the middle of the normal range. Percentage-wise, we're looking at something between two and three percent of my red blood cells. If I've got my math right, that means my marrow is churning out enough baby red blood cells to replace my whole stock of RBCs in 30-50 days. If that production holds up, we could be on the way to making enough red blood cells to reduce my need for transfusions. At least, I'd like to hope that's what it means!

But reticulocytes are a bit of a mystery to me. Prior to being treated with Campath, my retic counts were almost always abnormally high. If that's the case, if my marrow was pushing out lots of baby red blood cells, why was I anemic? If any of you fellow marrowforums folks have figured out this reticulocyte thing, fill me in.

Take care!

Greg