wbc

Gloom without doom

Advanced Prostate Cancer, David Emerson, Down Under, test results, wbc -

OK, so you lovers of Fall, now what?

The leaves have all fallen and the gloominess of Fall/Winter has arrived in Kansas City
like a Mac truck! It was in the seventies last week, and now it’s been rainy for two days and
the temperatures are hovering around 40! Bah humbug!!
It looks like this weekend disc golf will make it’s annual return to the course in the woods, or “Down Under’ as it is called. Ignoring the comments of my first paragraph, I love it! I’ll snap a few photo’s and include in an upcoming post.
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Mary just called with the results of yesterday’s blood test and bone scan.
Bone scan results – good news, no changes from the end of August!!
Blood Test – stay away from me! White and red blood cell counts now at an all time low!!!

Running from Fay

Advanced Prostate Cancer, Coumadin, David Emerson, hurricane Fay, wbc -

I have been trying to put off work travel as much as possible, but I had to go to Orlando on Monday and Tuesday. I was originally scheduled to return Tuesday night on a 7:20 flight. As it turns out, that was supposed to be nearly the exact time hurricane Fay was to cross over Orlando.
After meeting for most of the day, the folks I was traveling with and I scrambled Monday afternoon to move to a hotel closer to the airport and onto flights that departed Tuesday morning. Things seemed to be in order, I was scheduled to take a direct flight and be back in KC by 12:30pm.
As fate would have it, things turned out a little differently. First, Midwest Airlines decided not to send the planes for their 11:20 and 12:30 flights into Orlando. They were the only airline that pulled the trigger this early. In order to shorten the story I’ll just say my day was filled with many hours of standing in lines, employing patience and dealing with airport security. In the end, I was home by 7:00pm Tuesday night, about 12 hours after arriving at the Orlando airport. That sure beats the first response from the employee at the Midwest ticket counter….”The next flight we can get you on is Friday morning”.
And now a health update, the reason most of you are here…..
I was pretty fatigued over the weekend, but I was able to get in a round of disc golf.
Blood test results from Monday showed the following:
WBC: 1.6 (all time low)
INR: 1.5 (Needs to be 2.0 to 3.0 so they have increased my coumadin from 5mg to 7.5mg)
The first accounts for the fatigue and elevates my risk of infection, amongst other things. The latter is being tracked for the blood clot medication.

“WBC” at an all time low….

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, wbc, white blood cell count -

I just received a fax with the results of Monday’s blood test and my white blood cells have run off somewhere!
WBC count: 1.7

White blood cell count (WBC) – The number of white blood cells in a specified volume of blood. White blood cells form the mainstay of your immune system — a low number might increase your risk of infection and a high number possibly indicating that you have an infection.
According to today’s report, normal is between 4.0 and 10.5. At 1.7 all I can say is Yikes! It’s amazing that I’m not more fatigued. Overall, the key is to reach full recovery by August 11th. My red blood cell count is still in the normal range so there is some good news.
By the way, I’m sure you’ve noticed something looks different around here? Brown was so blah, this place needed a little sprucing up! I hope you like it?
Just a brief update, enough for today!