What's "up" with these platelets ?

Ben played in his trumpet with the school band at the Christmas concert last Thursday. It was a great concert! He just loves music. Very talented!

Monday's (Dec. 7th) blood counts were low. Ben had to receive another platelet transfusion on Tuesday. His other counts were low but acceptable at this stage. He had a nose bleed Friday and with low platelets, it takes longer to stop any bleeding. After about 45 minutes it finally stopped.

We checked blood counts today (Sunday, Dec. 13th) to see if things went up. We just received the results. Platelets are down again. His platelet count is 21. Normal platelets are between 165 and 397. So he will most likely be going for a third platelet transfusion tomorrow. His hemoglobin is down so he may need red blood cells... we'll see. His neutrophils, which help him fight off infections are lower as well (0.6). A normal neutrophil count is 1.9 to 7.3, so he will need to stay away from crowds. That's a good excuse to stay away from the malls.

At this stage, the doctors are seeing how much his body can handle and will adjust the chemo and timing accordingly. Normally his next chemo round would start on the 18th of December. Looks like this might be delayed so his counts have enough time to bounce back up.

I've been keeping track of everything he's been through since he was 3 years old, and he's had about 520 needles poked into him. Despite that, his smile continues to brighten all our days!

4 Comments

SOLOMON OBADIA

12/14/2015 03:10:14 am

Keep smiling Ben. Your good spirits will go along way in helping to ?ght this. May 2016 be your year for full recovery.☺

REPLY

CHAYA

12/17/2015 02:12:16 am

Amen!

REPLY

LORI

12/15/2015 04:01:21 pm

Continuing to follow your story and Ben's bravery. Hoping his counts start to come up and that you enjoy a beautiful holiday season

together as a family. Xo

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FRANÇOISE

12/19/2015 07:00:09 pm

Bonnes vacances, Michel, Pam, Ben and Stephanie.

Heart attack. I come here to take a look at your smile this afternoon, Ben. It had disappeared. It just said photo. I take a look at your

other photos. There are just a few of your baby pictures. I know ... The site could just have been busy but how do you say heart, Ben

? Le babe ?

Take good care of yourself and keep smiling for a long, long time, darling boy.

Big hugs and lots of love,

XOXOXOXO