Wonking out

My head hurts.  We're back in decision-making mode and it's slow going because we each bring up decision-models, statistics, breaking things into percents, grouping vs not grouping....  In the end we'll have made a well thought-out decision but for now it's tedious!  The cause of our decision-fest is that, since Annie's need for transfusions has dropped due to her taking "smurfs," we can consider waiting until May to have her transplant.  Her counts today were 19,000 plt and 8.8 hmg and her next appointment is in two weeks.  She feels good and gets through her days successfully, for now.   On the flip side a potential donor, albeit not a perfect match, has been located and we could start her hospitalization as early as January 2nd.  There are pros and cons to each date and a variety of things to consider, thus our decision summit.  As with any thoughtful decision-process we'll need to fill in gaps by getting more information and we'll need to let it all sink in to see if our decision stands up over some time.  Therefore we'll post more about our timeline once we have things better nailed down.

Losing steam

Annie didn't quite make it to her appointment on the 21st.  We could tell her hemoglobin had dropped very low as she had to sit down after relatively short walks or trips up a staircase.  By the end of the day she didn't have the energy to sit up through dinner.  Thus we took her in for a hemoglobin transfusion yesterday.  Sure enough her hemoglobin was way down at 5.6 (the desired range is 11.5-15.5).  Her platelets were stable at 20,000 (desired range 150,000-350,000).  Although stable it wasn't enough to hold back two, two-hour long bloody noses that occurred since the last update.  We didn't see her doctor since we had to go for an unscheduled transfusion instead of our scheduled appointment.  We'll meet with her doctor next Thursday and update after that.

Stable

Annie's blood test today showed her blood counts being stable from our last visit.  Her hemoglobin was 7.9 last visit and 7.4 this time.  While for a healthy adult this would leave us passed out on the couch, Annie's body has adjusted somewhat to these low counts and she is functioning pretty well with them.  Her platelets were 21,000.  Last visit was odd in our getting a range of values but nonetheless this is a nice number for what we've had for the last year (albeit normal starts at 150,000).  There is no news yet on the donor search as to be expected.  Thus we were able to leave without a transfusion and the doctor didn't think we needed to come back for another two weeks.  Thus, unless Annie feels unwell, we will report again on the 21st.  Go smurfs!