I sat in front of my oncologist. He sat quietly, looking at the results of my latest blood test. I asked if I could see them, and he passed the print out over to me. My eyes swept down the page, and I felt that sinking feeling. My lymphocyte and my neutrophil scores were not good. For that matter, my lymphocyte count was bloody scary.
Lets get it straight. I'm no hemotologist and I don't pretend to have it all together when I read my blood counts. But, I am curious and I like to know what is happening and I take note of my numbers.
A normal neutrophil count runs between 1 and 6. Mine was a little over 2 and even more frightening was my plummeting lymphocyte count. It was hovering a little above zero. These are big gun blood cells which fight infections and the lymphocyte T cells are little tigers that roam the blood system looking for cancer cells to attack. Not just that, but when the lymphocyte count hits zero...it becomes a tough fight against pneumonia and other infectious enemies. And, I have been noticing that it was getting tougher all the time for me to shake the common cold.
With that I asked my oncologist..."What can I do to improve these numbers?" His comment. "Nothing" Blood cell counts go up and down and these are your normals."
I was angry and frustrated. What disturbed me was a friend who recently died of cancer, told me "these are your normals" was a pat line that he was repeatedly given in the last years prior to his death.
I went home and turned on my computer, with the determination that if I wanted to get anywhere in this fight, I would have to take greater personal responsibility.
Three months later my neutrophil count improved by about 20% and had moved into the mid normal range and my lymphocyte count improved by 100% and was nearing the low normal level. I will tell you more this turnabout in a future posting.
