Friday 26th February 2010

We've had a good few days at home. Luke is enjoying the freedom of the house. The nurse is coming each day generally around 11am. They do his obs and take blood and phone through his blood results around 4.30pm. Today we had a slight hiccup as Tony couldn't get blood to flow through the central line. He flushed it a few times and said that cells can sometimes congregate internally around the central line and block the line. He had him standing up with his arm out and finally blood started to flow.
When Tony called through the results he said that Luke's fibrogen levels were getting on the low side and that if the level dropped to 1.0 next time round we would need to go into hospital to get the 10 bags of cryoprecipitate.

Luke's results over the last few days are:
25/2 Haemaglobin 116 / White Cell Count 2.1 / Platelets 256 / Neutrophils 1.2
26/2 Haemaglobin 110 / White Cell Count 2.2 / Platelets 243 / Neutrophils 1.8

Someone asked me again the other day what a normal males levels should be so just as a recap:

Haemaglobin 130 -170 / White Cell Count 3.7 - 11 / Platelets 150 - 400 and Neutrophils 2 - 7.5.

As you will see his levels are much higher than they were originally especially the platelets which got as low as 12 and neutrophils which got as low as 0.05. As he has just about finished this chemo round you would expect his blood levels to pick up again.

We ended up taking Luke out quickly this afternoon to buy a bed for him. We had an idea which bed frame we were getting but needed him to try out the mattresses. Sure enough the one's Murray and I had tested were too hard for him. So he's ended up with some whiz bang 7 zone plush mattress! I am really amazed at how easily he is bruising by just lying in bed at night or crossing his ankles while on the recliner.

Well all of Luke's watching cooking shows in hospital (and prior to that really) has finally paid off. Luke made a nice banana cake last night and this evening he made us a really nice pasta dish with chicken, bacon, broccoli, zucchini, herbs in a creamy sauce. I'm impressed! Mind you I'm being the master chef's apprentice doing all the cutting and preparation. Luke's excuse is that he shouldn't cut himself due to his bloods reduced ability to clot. But hey, I won't knock it if he wants to keep on cooking!!!

Luke's hair has been steadily falling out over the past week. His hair was so thick before and it really had thinned out considerably. The fringe that he used to spike up, he recently started patting down to try and hide the thinning. It didn't help that he was due for a haircut anyway so the bits that were falling out were quite long and noticeable. So tonight his Aunty Natty came around and gave him a Number 3 shave all over. It looks pretty good but quite thin. There are no major patches at present as it seems to be an all over thinning.

We have been hearing of quite a lot of people who are going to participate in the Leukaemia Foundations Shave for a cure. It really is a fabulous organisation and the support they give to patients and their carers is amazing. The foundation also funds leading research into better treatments and cures for leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders. In one of the next few blogs I will do a bit of advertising for their cause and give you the names of people/teams who are taking part and advise how you might be able to sponsor them. If you are taking part and you don't think I know about it yet please let me know via email so that I can include your details.