DeeEast
11-19-2009, 04:12 AM
At Children's today, DS's hemoglobin was slightly up (good) but not back to normal yet. We won't have his reticulocyte count (new red blood cells that indicate his bone marrow is working correctly) until tomorrow but the Dr. said that from looking at the slides of the blood sample, it looked like they were down (not good).
The Dr. is still confident that it is transient erythroblastopenia of childhood (tec) and that DS is going to recover completely very soon, as in the next few weeks. We will continue to get his blood count taken every week or so until it goes up on its own. Bottom line right now is that MDS (pediatric myelodyspastic syndrome) will not be off of the table as a possible diagnosis until DS spontaneously gets better and they can diagnose TEC in retrospect. If the hemoglobin goes down or if it doesn't go up between now and the next two months (approximately by the third week of January 2010) then the Dr. will probably do another bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, along with further blood tests.
We are in the midst of arranging for a second opinion at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, hematology department. From what I have learned, Children's Philadelphia was recently ranked the #2 overall Children's Hospital in the U.S. and their oncology department is #1 in the U.S. I signed the forms for the release of the records and spoke to DS's hematologist about it. Our doctor was more than happy to provide copies of all of the records, reports, and slides, along with a cover letter explaining the situation and an email to the consulting doctor. Hopefully the second opinion will be sooner rather than later but Philadelphia can't schedule the appointment until they receive the records.
Thanks everyone for their concern and prayers. We are going to need them in the coming weeks, over the holidays especially. Also thanks to the poster that pointed me to CaringBridge.com. That has been a God-send. Also thanks to the posters that encouraged me to get a second opinion. The thought of bringing it up to our hematologist was bothering me but it ended up not being a problem.
Today had the added benefit of me making the special effort to stop quickly at the Apple store to get my Ipod Nano fixed. The volume has not worked for weeks and being without my music, especially at this time, has been driving me crazy. Only to find out that my frigging Wal-Mart earphones are defective. Not a thing wrong with my Ipod. D'oh!
The Dr. is still confident that it is transient erythroblastopenia of childhood (tec) and that DS is going to recover completely very soon, as in the next few weeks. We will continue to get his blood count taken every week or so until it goes up on its own. Bottom line right now is that MDS (pediatric myelodyspastic syndrome) will not be off of the table as a possible diagnosis until DS spontaneously gets better and they can diagnose TEC in retrospect. If the hemoglobin goes down or if it doesn't go up between now and the next two months (approximately by the third week of January 2010) then the Dr. will probably do another bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, along with further blood tests.
We are in the midst of arranging for a second opinion at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, hematology department. From what I have learned, Children's Philadelphia was recently ranked the #2 overall Children's Hospital in the U.S. and their oncology department is #1 in the U.S. I signed the forms for the release of the records and spoke to DS's hematologist about it. Our doctor was more than happy to provide copies of all of the records, reports, and slides, along with a cover letter explaining the situation and an email to the consulting doctor. Hopefully the second opinion will be sooner rather than later but Philadelphia can't schedule the appointment until they receive the records.
Thanks everyone for their concern and prayers. We are going to need them in the coming weeks, over the holidays especially. Also thanks to the poster that pointed me to CaringBridge.com. That has been a God-send. Also thanks to the posters that encouraged me to get a second opinion. The thought of bringing it up to our hematologist was bothering me but it ended up not being a problem.
Today had the added benefit of me making the special effort to stop quickly at the Apple store to get my Ipod Nano fixed. The volume has not worked for weeks and being without my music, especially at this time, has been driving me crazy. Only to find out that my frigging Wal-Mart earphones are defective. Not a thing wrong with my Ipod. D'oh!