We went back to the hospital the following Monday and Alex's platelet count had risen to 57. That's still very low but a clear indication that things were moving in the right direction so no transfusion was required.
Back Alex went Wednesday with Cynthia as I was in Boston, and Alex had another blast of Vincristine. His platelets had climbed impressively to 159, that's verging on downright normal! We have since had several very good days and Alex has been feeling pretty good - he was even swimming in the pool a couple of times - that's a first since July. Nice.
On Tuesday of this week we went to a local lab to get blood work in preparation for Alex's Wednesday appointment when he was due to have a lumbar puncture of Methotrexate and another shot of Vincristine. Unfortunately it turned out his white blood cell count was too low to have the procedure done - his neutrophils (the type of white blood cell specific to fighting infections) were at 0.3 and the minimum requirement is 0.75 ("normal" is 1.5 to 7.0).
So we are pushed back by a week until next Wednesday. This is pretty typical we are told and the fact that his Haemoglobin was 90 and those strapping platelets were a very lusty 375 means the marrow is working, but the chemotherapy targets the white blood cells mostly. While everything gets pushed back and we would like to just get on with it, we are equally happy to have the time off.
Sorry for being so tardy with the updates.
