Re: Thank You All for your Responoses

March 25, 2009

Duane

When Fonsie (my husband) was diagnosed on 2/3 his wbcount was 500,000 and his

spleen was enlarged. Being a " guy " he waited too long to go to a doc, and he

had no insurance. In the hospital they did leukophoresis where they put a port

in his thigh and did something like dialysis. They gave him a transfusion of 2

units of blood first then did they leukophoresis where they took out his

" sludge " blood and whipped it around in the machine and removed most of the

white blood cells along with some plasma and red blood cells and sent the good

blood back into his vein. After 2 treatments his wbc was 250,000. The Hydrea

(radiation pill) and Gleevec brought it down to 230,000 when he left hospital,

but the Hydrea alone dropped him from 230,000 to 65,000 in a week. However, he

got his Gleevec on 2/19 and on 3/19 when he went back to see the oncologist his

blood count was 5,000 and that is normal. Tell your daughter to give it time

and the Gleevec will

work, but if Gleevec does not work for her after some time, as some of the

people here can tell you, talk to your doc about other options because Gleevec

is not the only medicine out there that will lower the wbc (white blood cell

count). Good luck and keep telling her it does get better. Hugs Judy

From: duane36_1999 <duane36_1999@...>

Subject: [ ] Thank You All for your Responoses

Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 7:40 PM

I am truly greatful for the person that pointed me to this group. I also believe

his sister posted a reply to me on here. Everyone is very kind and helpful.

My daughter is still in hospital with her mother keeping her company and we talk

frequently or text. I know she is still struggling with her emotions which are

running pretty high right now. I just try to be encouraging and supportive to

her.

This morning her white blood count was 214K. She texted me at 5:15AM. She is

never up that early, fortunately I almost always am. This afternoon, almost 24

hours after her first Gleevic dose, she was up to 259K. I told her to remember

what the doc told us about it will most likely tumble, but at first it will be

slow coming down. I am pretty sure the rise is just due to her only having one

dose of Gleevic so far and it was almost 24 hours ago so I was trying to

encourage her.

She knows I found this site and she asked me to find out for her about if the

count fluctuating pretty wildly at the early stages of treatment is normal.

Thank you,

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