Week 40 - Month 9 blood results available

It would appear all those lovely little lymphocytes that were breeding like rabbits have now committed a mass suicide having resolved my infection, sadly this month they have slumped back down to 0.79 (contrary little bastards) Everything else that was elevated fighting the infection is now back down to normal levels again and I feel great regardless so I’m not going to stress over it.

	Lower Level	Upper Level	Pre-Lem BASELINE	December	January	FEB CD Cell Breakout	February
Blood
Haemoglobin	120	160	144	130	138	136	142
WBC Count	4.0	11.0	11.9	9.8	11.6	11.9	8.8
Plt count	150	500	289	263	336	279	292
Rbc count	3.8	5.8	4.67	4.32	4.32	4.45	4.46
Haematocrit	0.36	0.47	0.445	0.417	0.42	0.42	0.434
MCV	76	103	95.3	96.5	97.4	94.4	97.3
MCH	27	32	30.7	30.1	32	30.7	31.9
MCHC	300	360	323	312	329	325	327
RDW	11	16	13	12.5	12.8	13.1	12.7
Hypochromic  RBC %	0	2.5	0	3	6	0	0.5
Neutrophils	1.8	8	8.09	7.94	9.4	9.76	6.95
Lymphocytes	1.3	4	2.5	0.88	0.93	0.95	0.79
Monocytes	0.2	0.8	0.83	0.59	0.7	0.71	0.62
Eosinophils	0	0.8	0.24	0.2	0.23	0.36	0.26
Basophils	0	0.3	0.12	0	0	0	0
Liver Function
Bilirubin	0	21	9	5	3		8
ALT	0	60	21	14	16		17
Alkaline Phosphatase	30	130	51	49	50		44
Albumin	35	50	45	40	43		42
Thyroid Function
TSH	0.35	4.5		3.4	1.88		2.5
Urea and Electrolytes
Sodium	133	146	139	147	143		140
Potassium	3.5	5.3	4.7	4.3	4.4		4.6
Urea	2.5	7.8	3.8	3.2	4.4		5.2
Creatine	44	97	62	63	70		75
eGFR per 1.73sq m	60	99999	>90	>90	>90		>90

 

Updates from the world of me this week don’t include last week’s ‘getting my bitch on’ thing, in fact things in my world this week have been pretty great.

On Friday I decided that it was probably wise to speak to a physio and test my ‘would stretching me’ theory out and see what happened. I saw a lovely lady at Berkshire Physiotherapy Centre who within a few minutes of checking me out had diagnosed the two problems I have with my arms / shoulder. I have an ‘impinged nerve’ in my right shoulder, and my left forearm is ‘Tennis Elbow’ or as it was pointed out to me ‘RSI – Repetitive Strain Injury’ otherwise known in less polite circles as ‘wanker’s cramp’. Basically it’s all my own damn fault, my posture is appalling particularly when I sit and read books. I tend to sit on a low chair, lean forwards balancing my elbows on my knees (hence the trapped nerve in my right shoulder) and I hold my iPad in my left hand (so I can use my right hand to pick up my wine glass). I’m now sporting some rather attractive blue tape on both offending body parts, have a list of exercises that I have to do as many times a day as I can, and instructions to sit up / stand up straight and stop slouching!!!!!!

I’ve been very vigilant about doing the exercises and just 3 days later I’m already seeing an improvement! My mobility of both offending body parts is significantly improved, the pain levels drastically reduced. I have another session tomorrow night where I’m hoping to get a gold star for effort, and hopefully the blue tape changed as it’s peeling off a bit in places now – I’m also hoping it can be replaced with something more exciting, like whatever they put on kids hopefully – I’m holding out for Minions or Mr Men on replacement tape.

On route to the physio my car had a major health set back – the warnings started flashing and pinging to say ‘Vehicle Pollution System Failure’ even to me as a person who hates to get my hands dirty that one was obvious – the exhaust was FUBAR. I limped it home and waited for business hours to get it booked on for a repair. Our closest Kwik Fit were absolutely amazing, it was just a loose seal on the pipe bits which they did for no charge (they noticed I needed a new tyre – which I had planned on mentioning any way so what could have been a HUGE bill was only £90 in the end for a new tyre and wheel balance + a mended exhaust YAY (probably helped that I was offering to buy them coffee and cake from Starbucks because they were being so great)

The weekend was quiet and restful once the car panic was resolved, actually it was a full on lazy weekend, we deserved one of those. We finally got round to hanging my Mum’s paintings on the walls in the lounge. They haven’t been hung up since September 2013 when we took them down from Mum’s old house and shipped them to the Sunrise Care Home in Solihull when Mum moved in 4 weeks before she died. After Mum was gone the paintings went to my brother, Ian never got round to hanging them up and then Ian was gone too and they came to me. If I’m honest I’ve probably been procrastinating a little about putting them up. They look beautiful and we designed the room around them being up in there, but it breaks my heart right now to look at them and know what I’ve lost that brought them to me.

This week is going to be full on with Work, Physio again Tuesday evening a MONSTER MRI Wednesday morning on my brain and spine. I’m looking forward to the weekend again already and it’s barely the end of Monday.