Week 40 – Meeting with Amit Khot

Last week’s blood tests showed some positive results.  My doctors have indicated that not only is my leukeamia in ‘deep remission’ but the blood counts are relatively stable with Hbs up around 100,  Wcc and Neutrophils in the normal range and my platelets are climbing – around 81 at the moment.  As I’ve mentioned before the platelet count is perhaps the best indicator that the Bone Marrow is working as it should, producing new blood cells.

The steroids seem to have knocked the diarrhoea over and apart from some abdominal pain from time to time my gut seems to be handling the GVHD pretty well.  Let’s hope this pattern continues as I start my weaning process from the steroids.

Today we met up with Head Consultant Amit Khot.  He was once again pleased with the blood results saying everything looks very promising at this stage.  Results were as follows:

Hb – 99,  Wcc  11.9,  Platelets 81, Neutrophils 9.2 and Creatinine 87.

He now only requires to see me on a monthly basis and does not think my blood results will change radically over this time.  He indicated it could take up to 6 months for the Red Blood cells and Platelets to recover to the normal range but did indicate that for many patients they don’t actually make a full recovery.  He said he’d be happy with Red Bloods Cells being stable at 100 or slightly higher.

The weaning process from  the steroids will take somewhat longer than I had expected with a drop in level every two weeks rather than weekly.  All things going well this will take me out to mid August (almost 12 months from diagnosis) before I will be off the steroids and cyclosporin.  Oh well, just keep on taking the drugs!

Catch ups

We seem to have had quite a busy time catching up with friends over the past week.

 

 

Elizabeth Balderstone (Dub) called in for a cup of tea on Thursday.  I haven’t seen her for a few years and this was quite special.

 

 

I had two ‘aviation days’ on Thursday and Friday.  Firstly Rick  Pegus from Navair in Sydney had flown my plane down with a group of people attending the Rugby League State of Origin.  My plane is also being extensively used (out of Bankstown) for aeromedical work  where seats are removed and a stretcher is fitted for transporting  ill patients across the country side.  I was keen  to have a look at the plane as I had not set eyes on it since last August and wanted to see if there had been any noticeable damage from the new operations.  All was well.

And Chris Cabot from  Wagga Air Centre was in town Thursday night/ Friday morning with a charter in Paul Mara’s TBM 850.  This is a beautiful plane and I couldn’t resist the temptation to run  Chris out to Essendon and have a sit in the aircraft.  It was good to catch up with Chris – who also advised me that Mark Wallace (his aircraft engineer at Wagga) was in the final stages of palliative care for melanoma.  Mark was first diagnosed at about the same time as I received my diagnosis.  Unfortunately Mark passed away last weekend – a very sad time indeed.

Jan was keen to visit the new MoMA exhibition at the NGV so that filled in a few hours on Friday.  It was full of very recognisable exhibits from New York – and lots of people!

 

 

 

 

On Saturday and Sunday we caught up with Paul and Gioia Giannotis and their boys Oscar and Rohan.  Paul is our CEO of Proway livestock equipment and not only did we have a good social catch up but spent some time going over business matters.

We spent a great couple of hours at the Melbourne Aquarium and then visited the very interesting ‘Artvo’ interactive art display in Docklands.  This resulted in some  quite stunning photos.

 

On Monday we caught up with the Rouches and Irvines and managed a lovely bush walk (in the middle of Melbourne at Braeside) before sharing lunch at Hampton.  We enjoyed swapping a few stories and catching  up on family matters.  The Irvines have proudly announced that their daughter Frances is to be married!

 

Time for a haircut!