Day 8. The White Blood Count Ride

After several uneventful days that involved daily neupogen shots, Richard got blood tests and met with the doctor. This was the first time we had seen the doc since last Sunday. Richard's port site appears puffy, so the doctor put him on two antibiotics. Richard seemed to tolerate them well this evening.

The cytoxin administered last week is effectively suppressing Richard's white blood cells. Richard's WBC was 0.46 today, dropping from 5.3 two weeks ago. Normal range is 4.2 to 10.0. If all goes well, his WBC will start climbing back up in the next day or two. Stem cell collection is next Monday or Tuesday. Richard's red blood count is 3.53, down from 3.9 two weeks ago; normal range is 4.6-6.2.

For you Multiple Myeloma buffs out there, here is Richard's IgG count over the course of the disease/treatment so far:

IgG
1/6/06 - 9171 (Week of diagnosis) Normal range is 700-1600.
2/3 - 9215 [quite active tumor loading; this was pre-inductive treatment]
3/1 - 3806 [achieved a dramatic drop with Thal(200mg)/Dex(40mg 4 days on/off)]
4/24 - 3225 [slowed progress due to treatment ceasation because of drug rash from Thal]
5/18 - [change in treatment to Velcade/Dex(40mg 1x/wk)]
6/12 - 3183 [Velcade only moderately effective at minimizing MM]
7/10 - [stop all treatment in preparation for stem cell harvest]
7/20 - 2808 [admitted to hospital for cytoxin]

Thanks to everyone who has written comments on the blog and sent comments separately by email. We're a little slow in responding, but we'll get there!

More things we appreciate: Friends who make us laugh. For me, it means going out with my girlfriends and discussing topics ranging from religion to Marky Mark. Thanks Monika and Lisa.--Robin

P.S. I took a picture of Richard's port for those not faint of heart. See below.


Richard - Port 7-06