Mom's sickness
For weeks now, my mom's counts for red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets have all been dropping. The two doctors who saw her (primary care physician and a hematologist) thought that this was due to the fact that she had been prescribed too high a dose of a medicine that she took to bring her platelet count down - her platelet count at one point was more than 1000 times higher than average. However, after stopping the old medication, and giving her two blood transfusions, the counts are still declining, although they are declining more slowly. The most obvious problem, though, is that for the past two weeks she has been suffering more and more from sharp stabbing pains running through her chest, neck, back, and head. They had thought this might also be a symptom of damage to bone marrow caused by an excessively high dose of her old medication. Yesterday, she saw another hematologist, and the diagnosis has changed - now it is essentially "we're not sure what's going on". If it was just the medicine, her system should be rebounding and producing more red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets - but it isn't. The pain has also become more intense and systematic than they expected, and they aren't exactly sure what causes it. All in all, it's hardly encouraging or helpful. Mom gets another blood infusion tomorrow to keep her red blood cell levels up to minimal standards, and will have a bone marrow biopsy in a week, which from what little I know is an unpleasant process in and of itself.
The waves of pain are the most obvious symptom, though. They come every 4 or 5 hours, sometimes mild, sometimes severe. At their height, mom has to lay down on a heating pad that helps dull the pain in her back. Even then, I can see her breathing shallowly because breathing in a more normal way is painful. Sometimes she gets nasty migraine-type pain in the head, and when this happens, the blood must be rushing to her head, because her face is flushed red even though her low red cell count means that overall she usually looks more pale than normal. The prescription pain medication they've given her (2 types so far) hasn't worked very well. Only Advil seems to really reduce the pain. The problem is that Advil can actually lower blood platelet levels further. The doctors apparently would prefer that she not take it, but they said it was OK if it was really necessary. Mom considers it necessary now, and I certainly agree with her. Given that she can't breathe properly or sit up because every breath or muscular movement sends stabbing pains through her body, I think she's justified in taking anything that will relieve the pain and is not actually dangerous, even if it's not ideal.
I hope that the biopsy finds that whatever is wrong is something that can be cured quickly.
The waves of pain are the most obvious symptom, though. They come every 4 or 5 hours, sometimes mild, sometimes severe. At their height, mom has to lay down on a heating pad that helps dull the pain in her back. Even then, I can see her breathing shallowly because breathing in a more normal way is painful. Sometimes she gets nasty migraine-type pain in the head, and when this happens, the blood must be rushing to her head, because her face is flushed red even though her low red cell count means that overall she usually looks more pale than normal. The prescription pain medication they've given her (2 types so far) hasn't worked very well. Only Advil seems to really reduce the pain. The problem is that Advil can actually lower blood platelet levels further. The doctors apparently would prefer that she not take it, but they said it was OK if it was really necessary. Mom considers it necessary now, and I certainly agree with her. Given that she can't breathe properly or sit up because every breath or muscular movement sends stabbing pains through her body, I think she's justified in taking anything that will relieve the pain and is not actually dangerous, even if it's not ideal.
I hope that the biopsy finds that whatever is wrong is something that can be cured quickly.