Day +922 : Follow-up

My Blood Count Today: - Readings in square bracket [] are result from previous test.

Red Blood Count (HB) = 146[137] (Normal 130-180)

Platelet = 230[245] (Normal 150-450)

White Blood Count (WBC) = 6.9[6.5] (Normal 4 - 11)

Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) = 3.312[2.99] (Normal 1.5 - 8.0)

ALT = 79[38] (Normal 30 – 65)

AST = 57[24] (Normal 15-37)

GGT = 58[46] (Normal 15-85)

I am fine today.

I did my routine follow-up this afternoon. The blood count results were normal but there was a significant increase of liver function test readings; both ALT and AST were more than doubled compared to the last follow-up result.  The reason that caused this sharp elevation might due to the cutting off of Prednisolon (steroid) intake during last follow-up. However, the readings were not deviated too much off the optimal readings and thus there was no point of worry here :-)

The doctor reduced the daily Ciclosporin dosage from 50mg to 25mg. The drug, likes Prednisolon, is used to suppress the immune system to reduce the effect of GVHD. In order to monitor the effect of this adjustment, doctor fixed my next appoint 4 weeks from now instead of 6 weeks.

I also complained the joints stiffness as I blogged on Day +916 : Alamak! My bone, but doctor had no idea what happened to me :-( He said that Prednisolon could cause osteoporosis but it is unlikely that causes joints stiffening. He adopted wait and see approach to this problem. If the situation deteriorated, he will refer me to appropriate doctors.

In addition to the joints problem, I also discovered many round and dry spots on my body similar to fungus infection. In order to rule out that this is not a GVHD symptom, doctor referred me to skin specialist whom I will see on the coming Friday morning.

As the Chinese new year is approaching, I brought a few boxes of Mandarin oranges to the nurses and staff in the haematology ward early in the morning. When I was hospitalised June last year, the ward was shifted from level 6 to level 9 to allow for a major renovation. Now after 6 months of work, the ward was shifted back to level 6 again. It was very nicely renovated. Patients are no longer staying in open space like before. Three types of rooms are available now: single beds, twine beds and triple beds. And on top of this, there are now 5 isolated rooms for transplant patients. This means that the facility allows for 5 parallel bone marrow transplants. However, this is still not possible yet as the ward is lacking of transplant nurses.

As a patient who stayed in the ward over 130 days, I am so happy to see the improvement that had been made. It is just like my own house get renovated :-)

 

See you next post :-)