Soft Landing

I just had another complete blood count (CBC) on Monday and things look like they're stabilizing. The platelets are still low but within a normal range for remission and since they're stable, I'm happy. I was hoping the neutrophils would increase, but they're still in a normal range although they went down slightly over the past month. As you can see in the plots below, my counts have pretty much come in for a soft landing, and stability in the normal range is a good thing.

Following up on the liver enzymes: they're slightly back up over the normal limits, so I don't think the chamomile tea was a major contributor. I ate some foods with wheat and walnut ingredients a few days before the test (birthday and wedding celebrations), so that may have something to do with it. A fatty liver can cause gluten intolerance and low platelets due to decreased production of thrombopoietin, so I may still be fighting some fatty liver issues.

The weather last weekend was great! I got out and rode my bike 22 miles on the C&O Canal on Sunday. I'm anxious to push for 40 next weekend!

A Hairy Update

The past two months have been great! The February snowpocalypse gave me an opportunity to test my stamina shoveling and snowblowing, and I felt great afterward. I even shoveled out my neighbor's driveway. My FACS tests continue to show 0% hairy cells in the peripheral blood stream, and I'm still waiting for my next bone marrow biopsy in April to see if all evidence of hairies in the marrow has disappeared. I think it has. The Rituxan after the chemo really did the trick.

I continue to limit gluten in my diet and have stopped drinking herbal tea (specifically chamomile). Correspondingly, my liver enzyme levels returned to normal on my last blood test in February. I'm very interested in seeing if they continue to stay down when I go back in on the 22nd, now that I've stopped the tea. Interestingly, my platelets and neutrophils also came down a bit after stopping the chamomile, which is anecdotally tied to increasing neutrophils, but all my counts are still in the normal range.

I'm anxious to start riding my bike along the C&O canal again. Yesterday, I rode 20 miles in an hour using the "Pike's peak" profile at the maximum resistance level on my exercise bike. I would never have been able to do that level of resistance at any time before in my life. I really think I had HCL (and some other issues) "in-check" and undiagnosed for a long time before being diagnosed. I'm anxious to get outside and see what I can do now that it's warming up.

Life is definitely more normal now, although I'm not sure that's necessarily good. I spend a lot less time researching HCL. Still, I try to keep up with the latest news. For those who are interested, here's a link to a hairy cell video lecture by Dr. Kreitman, "Updates on Therapies for Hairy Cell Leukemia", on the current state-of-the-art of HCL research.



We had a 4D sonogram of baby girl #2 on the 7th (Cladribine did not reduce my fertility and may have improved it by eliminating the effects of chronic leukemia).  She was very shy and wanted to bury her head from view but we got several good peeks, and she looks a lot like her big sister. We're very excited to meet her in person in May.

Next Friday, the 19th, is my birthday and coincidentally the day my sister Elena is getting married. It'll be a great celebration with the family, and Claire is excited to be a flower girl with her cousin Olive. The next day, Saturday the 20th, marks 1 year since my diagnosis. I'm grateful to be celebrating it.

My latest labs look good. I'm going back in on the 22nd for another set, so I'll probably update the charts and publish them here when I get that data.