Archive for 2018

Still perplexed

Posted by on December 13th 2018 in Health, or lack thereof
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I had to attend for another blood-test on Tuesday 11/12/2018, and I got the results by phone today. Nothing is in-limit. Hb, WCC and neutrophils have all fallen significantly. Serum ferritin is now way over top limit at 862 with no explanation. The nerdy counts charts have been updated.

The consultants still aren't sure what's going on, but they were happy to continue with their plan, which would leave me hanging for another three weeks. Then I mentioned a couple of things that they'd not factored into their scheme...

First up is a problem that's reared its ugly head only recently... palpitations, specifically atrial flutter. It started a couple of weeks ago, once a day, but over last few days it's been a couple of times per hour. It's how the heart copes when there's not enough Hb in the mix. I had it before, when I was an in-patient undergoing chemo cycles 1 and 2.

Then there's the farce that was the "urgent blood test" that I requested at my GP surgery on Monday 03/12/2018 because I'd been feeling crap for a week or so. They took the samples on Tuesday 04/12/2018, the Walsgrave performed the tests that day, and true to the NHS' definition of "urgent" I was still waiting for the results to be released to me late on Friday. Their results are similarly bad but they don't match the trend of the LRI results, which is a bit of a worry. I decided to omit those results from the nerdy charts.

The consultants are going to revisit their plan, and I am to expect another call from the LRI sometime this Friday morning. I've placed my bet on being invited to another Bone Marrow Aspiration with Trephine, Chris has placed her bet on courses of antivirals and antibiotics. I think we'll both be right.

Peaked too early

Posted by on December 3rd 2018 in Health, or lack thereof, LMAO!, Lost in translation

After all the effort put into spelling "community phlebotomist" correctly, the rest appears to have gone to pot:

 

Innovation

Posted by on November 28th 2018 in Just for fun, Pub Quiz
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We're working on installing a liquid propulsion system.

It's not helping us to win the quiz, but it's making being wiped out in the final round easier to bear:

In denial

Posted by on November 26th 2018 in On the box
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The characters and incidents portrayed are entirely fictional.

Yup, that's what's displayed in the end credits of Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle". Three seasons in and we've seen plenty of "entirely fictional" characters in this excellent series.

But what about Adolf Hitler? And Eva Braun? And Heinrich Himmler? And J. Edgar Hoover? And Reinhard Heydrich? And George Lincoln Rockwell? And Shunroku Hata? And Joseph Goebbels? And Josef Mengele?

Entirely fictional? I think not.

Upside

Posted by on November 25th 2018 in Driveway-blocking feckwits and piss-poor parkers

Of course, there are unforeseen benefits to be had from all of these visits to the hospital. For starters it's a good opportunity to spot more piss-poor parkers selfishly space-hogging in the LRI multi-storey car-park. It took a lot of effort to resist the temptation to wield the black marker-pen, it would have been so easy to change the reg-plate's "TVT" to "TWAT":

 

Perplexed

Posted by on November 22nd 2018 in Health, or lack thereof, Video (YouTube, Vimeo etc.)
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Another blood-test and consultation today. The results were a bit of a mixed bag... platelets, WCC and neutrophils have all risen a tad but remain well below bottom-limit. Hb has dropped again and is now slightly below bottom-limit. They didn't give me a result for serum ferritin but from the way I feel I suspect that it has risen again. The nerdy counts charts have been updated.

The consultants aren't sure what's going on. The previous three times I was there I've been told that it might be t-MDS (therapy-associated myelodysplastic syndrome), then that t-MDS had been diagnosed, then that I have t-MDS. Now I'm told that I have neither t-MDS nor relapsing AML. In short, they know what it isn't, but they don't know what it is.

I was told that I am now over their two-year hurdle so it's likely I'll make five. I beg to differ - I feel like I'm stuck with one leg either side and my nuts squashed against the woodwork.

I may ask for a second opinion from someone who claims to know about what's known and what's not:

We're in "watch & wait" territory. Another blood-test three weeks hence, then a blood-test and consultation three weeks after that.

 

If there's one lesson to be learned, it's this:

When I get concerned about a result that's much worse than the trend, I'm told that it's a blip because it's out-of-context...

But when they triumphantly announce a result that's ever-so-slightly better than the trend, I'm told that it's a sign of recovery even though it's out-of-context.

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