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Old Tue May 24, 2016, 01:22 PM
Margaret W Margaret W is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Michigan
Posts: 31
Wow, Logain, I don't know... It's undoubtedly best to run that by her hematologists. It's a very interesting development. Maybe your wife is on her way towards going into a total remission!

I went from bone marrow cellularity of 0-2% on various bone marrow pathology reports since 1974, to cellularity of 5% last fall. My records had been sent to Phillip Scheinberg when he was at the NIH and also to Neal Young, at the same place, at various times, and Dr. Scheinberg (who, I understand, is back in South America) recommended that nothing be done at present. In January of this year, due to the increased cellularity, my local hematologist discharged me from his care with the recommendation that I go to the NIH. But I'm too tired to make the trip from SE Michigan to Baltimore, and so I opted for the University of Michigan instead. Their recommendation? "Watch and wait..." Back to Square One, IOW.

Dr. Scheinberg sent an e-mail to my then-treater (who is now struggling with a cancer diagnosis himself), which I was allowed to read, and said that he would not rely so much on bone marrow biopsy reports as he would on the counts themselves. If I'm functioning, have no active bleeding, etc., then it would be best to do nothing for the time being, he said. I guess I'm okay with that, but I'd surely feel better with a better HGB, RBC count and a platelet count over 50K, which I'm a long way from right now. I haven't had a platelet count over 50K for a couple of years now.

I've been dealing with this for my whole life... In 1978, I went back to the doctor who'd treated me when I was a baby. Because he had all my records in front of him, I asked him what my platelet count was in 1951. He looked at the records, said, "It was well below normal!" and slammed my chart shut. I think for most of us, aplastic anemia is a chronic problem. There are always going to be crises here and there, and there's an ongoing one when you can't take transfusions anymore, which is where I am now. But I count my blessings - and there are so many of them!

I'm very happy to read that your wife has normal cellularity in her bone marrow, and that her platelet count is above what's considered "dangerously low." Good signs, indeed!!!
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Margaret, SAA patient diagnosed 1972; ATG 1987; moderate AA for years; hep. C from transfusion 1987; now SAA is back.
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