visit with oncologist / hematologist

[Guest guest]

Hi, i was diagnosed Dec. 22nd 2010 from a blood test, 47

year old female

latest bloodwork:

WBC 20.0

RBC 4.87

random dist. width 15.6

neutrophils 8.4

Lymphocytes 10.8

smudge cells 87

cd19 84.4

cd5 95.1

cd19/cd5 84.8

cd19/cd5/cd38 26.1

cd20 67.8

cd23 84.4

I am being sent for followup bloodwork and ct scan of

thoracic abdominal cavity.

I understand - and am happy - that i will be W & W and that

there is not much of concern about all this apparently. Doc

implied i have years - decades - most likely to get used to

having this. I was surprised he was that glib, from the

material i have read i was concerned i was being brushed off

a bit ...

I have some questions that arose from my meeting, if I could

be so bold as to ask here ...

1. FISH, ZAP70 .... My hematologist (Dr. Findlay, St.

Catharines, ON, canada) told me these tests are never used

anymore outside of research. This does not seem to make

sense with my reading / exposure to advice from here and

elsewhere. In fact it is pretty much the opposite.

How upset should i be that i will never have these tests? He

said that I will never need them. I thought they were an

important part of understanding prognosis?

2. Is it true that symptoms i have are 100% unlikely to be

related in any way to my leukemia? I have bone pain /

exhaustion / bruising that predate the diagnosis (hence, not

psychosomatic, I've been " complaining " of these for years ..

they are just a lot worse now)

I am fine with just relaxing and letting things come as they

happen, but only if that is the correct thing to do. It bugs

me that everyone else on this list have access to their FISH

and zap70 values, but i do not. Is this a Canada only thing,

where one does not get these tests? And if they are not

important why is everyone bothering with them?