Since June 23rd, 2014

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

best laid plans

  • Bloodwork, appointment with Dr. T NP A and treatment Neupogen injection at Siteman South County
Today didn't go as planned. My absolute neutrophil count (ANC) was too low for treatment. Different medical definitions provide different numbers for what is normal, but here is what I have learned when it comes to absolute neutrophil count numbers and me.

> 1.5 is normal for most people
> 1.0 is normal for me and high enough for me to get treatment
< 1.0 is safe but too low for me to get treatment
< 0.5 is not considered safe and activities are restricted to avoid an infection

The only time that mine has been less than 0.5 was when I had chicken pox and they put me in the hospital. Today my ANC was 0.5. That's not great news, but as I was looking around on-line to try and define a normal ANC, I found the below article... and I quote "because neutrophils are short-lived, the body produces about 100 billion of these cells everyday." 100 billion. Everyday. So I think I'm going to cut my bone marrow a little slack and take this extra week off chemo to recover... and to make 700 billion more neutrophils. No big deal.

https://www.cancercare.org/publications/216-neutropenia_and_infections_what_you_need_to_know

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