A minor medical detail

Hi everyone:

When the phone rang this afternoon and the caller ID said "University of Chicago Hospital", Patty thought perhaps she was getting THE call. Alas, it was not to be. It turns out that Patty's white cell count is far too low. Patty's count is 2,100 cells per microliter...normal is between 4,500 and 10,000. Apparently, doctors would prefer that her count be on the lower side of normal, but hers is too low. The low count is almost certainly a direct result of her being on Cytoxan. To bring the WBC count back up, doctors have reduced her dose of Cytoxan from three times to twice per day.

It's important to understand that what we are hoping to reduce is antibodies, not white cell count. So this is not good news...it's not necessarily bad news, either, but it's not good news. The problem here is that Patty is immunosuppressed, and therefore more vulnerable to illness, but her antibodies are more resistant than doctors had at first hoped. A reduced dose of Cytoxan may mean it's even harder to drive down the antibodies.

Patty was feeling pretty rough last evening, and isn't ideal today, but she's doing okay.

Today, we had the ignitor on our oven fixed -- we've been microwaving for two weeks. Our lawn mower needs some minor repair because a bolt popped off. Our dryer was making funny noises last night that we can't really explain -- they just stopped. We need to fix the turn signal on our car, and our oil pressure was wonky yesterday. Do you suppose there's some force in the universe that makes machinery break down out of empathy for an ailing owner?

Love,
Brian