September 23, 2014

Today we were at clinic nearly as long as we were on the 12th! Most of the time was just waiting, waiting, waiting.

After SD was accessed this morning and we went through all the usual questions, a mid-level nurse came to explain more to us what was happening. She said that she knew it was scary to be called down like this, and that she and SD's oncologist did not believe that this was a relapse. However, with his counts inexplicably dropping repeatedly they wanted to be absolutely certain.

The draw was "easy" (last time they had a hard time getting any marrow out because it was so packed with leukocytes). After a few hours of waiting, the mid-level nurse approached us with a thumbs up - the preliminary results (microscope) showed no signs of leukemia. The cellularity (basically, the quality of the bone marrow) was also good. There are further tests to run on it which will take 2-3 days to complete, but so far the news is positive!

Tomorrow the oncologists will discuss some of the possible causes of the diving counts at their meeting. One possibility is that his bone marrow is just tired out after 3 years of chemo. They're also considering some blood conditions. The antibody condition they tested on the 12th has already been ruled out, but there are others which have not been explained to us in detail yet. Right now we are just waiting on more news.

SD will have another count check next Monday. He's been off chemo since last Thursday and will not resume until at least Monday.