The doctors and nurses have spent a lot of time with us the past couple days explaining more about Olivia's case. I learned about Neutrophil today. It's a type of white blood cell that form an essential part the immune system. Without it, the body has no ability to fight infection. A normal Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) is 1,500. When we got admitted, she had 0. That explains why she had fever that lasted more than usual.
Her current blood counts are as follows:
White Blood Count 1.4 (Normal is 5-10)
With her Neutrophil at 4%, her ANC is at 56 (Improved from the day we got admitted!). Anything less than 500 is considered severely neutropenic. This means she cannot fight infection at all.
Hemoglobin 7.8 (Normal is 12-14)
Platelets 20,000 (Normal is 150,000-450,000)
Some of you might ask me why I have been reporting that she is heading the right direction but her blood counts are still way below normal. Chemotherapy actually gets rid of cancer cells, but also gets rid of good blood cells at the same time. What we expect from chemo is that her body start to produce more good blood cells at a faster rate while eliminating the cancer cells. Her current blood counts are where the doctors expect it to be at this stage of chemotherapy. It will be a while until we see her counts close to normal.
That being said, we are being very cautious with her exposure to other people so as to not compromise her immune system. We were advised not to bring her to public places. Playdates are fine as long as everyone is well. Hopefully we get used to our new normal fairly quickly.
Olivia will be getting her 4th blood transfusion tomorrow (platelets), Friday morning, in preparation for her 2nd spinal tap. She will be given 2 chemotherapy medications tomorrow. One through her spine and the other through her port.
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