Friday, September 30, 2011

The Joe Pesci in all of us


With any luck I’m breaking out of this joint today. I’ve been in stir for more a week and can’t wait to go home. 

As always it depends on numbers. My doc told me last night that everything is going in the right direction. Here’s the big thing. I’m waiting on Neutrophils.

This is some pretty cool biology. Neutrophils are the most common white blood cells and they can take on much larger infecting cells. They’re kind of like the terriers of the blood cell world and epitomize the old axiom, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size fight in the dog.”

As I understand it – and I could be a little technically wrong, but I’m pretty close – neutrophils have a life span of about five days and the other white blood cells have a much longer life span. They are also insane and instead of running away from infections, they act like drunken college frat boys spoiling for a fight and run to an infection. Thank God they do. For some reason rugby comes to mind.

Here’s the deal -- a low neutrophil number means a couple of things. First, it means you don’t have enough maniacs looking for a fight with infections and second, since their life span is so short, your body is not making enough replacement maniacs to keep you safe. Like I said these cells are always looking for and finding trouble so there has to be a lot of them.

So I am waiting for my body to produce more of these hotheads and once it does I’m free I tell you, free!

As for other numbers such as platelets and red blood cells, these can be taken care of in an outpatient setting and unlike white blood cells and neutrophils, a shortage does not put me in immediate danger – just long term danger. So I can go home with a deficiency and get “topped off” at the ambulatory infusion center at the hospital (it’s still a major league pain in the buttocks, but it’s okay).

That’s kind of where we are with this thing. More to follow.

Peace to all,

Bill 

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