I went in for yet another blood-test and consultation today. They say that there's still no sign of the AML returning but the blood-counts don't look good. Platelets, WCC and neutrophils have all dropped again - that's four consecutive drops - and they're all now well below their normal ranges. Inexplicably, my serum ferritin level has risen from 165 × 10-6 g/L to 423 × 10-6 g/L which puts it way above where it should be.
The first evidence of reduced counts was picked up and comprehensively ignored way back in JUNE when, after LRI had advised me to see my GP about my "late effects", my GP arranged a full blood test. That test was conducted in Week 26 at a Warwickshire hospital which sent the results back to the GP and to nobody else. My GP's stand-in eventually phoned me in August to discuss my lipids results and not much else, but nobody there forwarded any results to LRI. As far as I knew, everything else was fine. And LRI were told nothing.
But ELEVEN WEEKS LATER an LRI test showed a counts drop and that set me to wondering what else was in those June results. Last week I raided my GP's surgery to get a copy of the June test results and when I read them I was gob-smacked - the report clearly showed significant drops and out-of-limit results for key haematology indicators. Earlier this week I sent LRI a full copy of the results... FIFTEEN WEEKS LATE.
So now it's looking like Myelodysplasia will be my early Christmas present this year.
I'm slated to have another blood test and consultation four weeks from today, and if they find that the count drops have continued they'll probably do another Bone Marrow Aspiration with Trephine, and if the results of that look dodgy we'll be looking at a PBSCT. Looking at the rate that the counts (especially the neutrophil counts) are dropping, I think that four weeks will be cutting it a bit fine.
