End of the month.

Yesterday was the end of the first month of chemo. A visit to the oncologist went well, but I hadn't had my blood tests yet so there wasn't much to discuss. Now I know I have to take the upper hand in this area too. There won't be a problem next time.

But we have the blood test results today and the numbers look REALLY good. The chemo is working and I'm "staying the course" without any changes in the plan. With results like these, I can tolerate a little insanity.

Here are the significant numbers from the CBC/Platelet/Differential test.

Leukocyte count - was low, now in normal range
RBC - still low, but 30% higher
Hemoglobin - still low, but 35% higher
Hematocrit - still low, but 40% higher
RDW - still high, but 9% lower
Platelet count - incr. from 46 to 304 and in range.
Myelocytes - zero!
Blasts - zero!
NRBC/100WBC - just 1!
Plasma cells - decrease of 33% from 3% to 2%

And now from the complete metabolic panel:

Sodium and Chloride - back in range.
Creatinine - back in range
Total Protein - down 32% (9.3 - goal of <8)
Alk Phos - went up over range - curious.
Alt - went up too - hmmmmm

I also picked up my heart monitor today and I get to play with it for two weeks. It'll be interesting to see if there's a correlation between the heart arrhythmia and the steroids (that I went back on this morning).

Eight days on Thalidomide alone. Thal isn't the thing that makes me nuts.... it's definitely the 'roids. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. I'm a good driver.

Some of you won't get that joke.