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| Kathleen's Diary: April 13, 2002 |
the international society for
mannosidosis & related diseases presents:
Robert's Road to Recovery: the second
transplant
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| Kathleen's Diary: April 13, 2002 |
BMT + 11
Mark had some cautiously optimistic data this morning when he received a copy
of Robert's counts and discussed them with Dr. Horn. Robert's White Blood Count
was up from less than .1 to .2 and his neutrophils went from 0 to .23 or 230
(Robert has to be over 500 for three days before he can go home). Normally any
counts right now would not be a good sign (last time he did not see any increase
in counts until day 18) and could be a sign of rejection. If the positive counts
that they were seeing were lymphocytes, there would be a sign of rejection.
Lymphocytes are more differentiated cells and cells that you see when there is
an infection. Lymphocytes visible right now would likely be Robert's not the
donor's. But neutrophils are the cells that create white blood cell. They are
the most immature cells and usually are there to protect against infection. If
the neutrophils were Robert's they wouldn't expect to see them for 5-6 weeks.
Tomorrow's counts should be very interesting. If WBC and Neutrophils continue to
rise than that is a good sign. If they do not go up that is not necessarily a
bad sign; it could mean the last reading was incorrect or that it will just take
patience (a tough word in my vocabulary).
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