A Bump In The Road
My time on Gleevec has been great. I've had minimal side effects, the counts have been falling, Spleenzilla is long gone, and I've gone about living a normal life. Until recently I was going a solid month between blood work and 2 months for actual face to face doctor visits. Until recently that is.
With all the hoopla of my WBC counts falling from a once 195 down into the normal range I figured I was home free and that Gleevec was going to work out great. What I didn't anticipate was my WBC count sloooooooowly continuing to drop. Now white blood cells and related cells are kind of weird. You can't really feel where they're at like red blood cells or hemoglobin which when low, really takes the wind of your sails. So when the Doc told me my counts are getting too low, I was shocked. I felt and feel great.
Apparently my neutrophils have fallen slightly below the safe zone. From my understanding, neutrophils and your WBC count go up and down all the time, but this didn't stop the Onc from taking me off Gleevec entirely. Kind of scary when you find out your sure thing isn't so sure after all.
The time off was short lived at less than a week, however, I think my Onc is going to give me shots to boost my counts rather than take me off Gleevec which in the medical field is mostly frowned upon. I had to remind her about this little factoid which once again proves, study this shit on your own and always question your doctor. So on top of the dwindling counts, I went off Gleevec for a week potentially unneedingly. Go Buckeyes!!!
So now it's back to watching and waiting. As I write this, I feel great. I've been to the gym 2 days in a row and everything "seems" fine. Let's just hope my WBC's worked out with me.
