3/16/2019
“Nadir” the short version: You feel almost dead and you are at the greatest risk of actually dying. An infection could run away quickly and mean lights out.
“Nadir” the Dan long version: Nadir in reference to chemotherapy is the lowest blood cell count post chemo. Lowest blood cell count often coincides with not feeling well. Since the life blood of mortal mankind is well, blood, if one’s counts are at their lowest, one might feel less alive or nearly dead. This is also the time of highest risk of getting sick from absolutely anything since the immune system does not have all the armies of specialized blood cell types to fight off the baddies.
The average lowest low of nadir is typically day 14-ish. Today I’m in day 17. I wake up feeling rather lousy and with a powerful headache. As time marches on, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 my head is beginning to clear and the Doctors and Nurses enter my room for morning rounds. After they made a few comments to adjustments in my treatment, it was my time to ask again about initial results of the bone marrow biopsy. Today being Saturday the oncology Doctor had rotated, so at least I was not appearing to be too loco asking the same question to the same person I asked yesterday and expecting a different result.
The oncologist said let me check and walked over to the computer for a few moments. She came back to my bedside and told me that post chemo, they hope for less than 5% blast cells and that my biopsy showed 2-2.5% blast cells! It verked, it verked, the chemo verked! That is a normal healthy person’s blast cell percentage!! She went on to say that the new blast cells also look different than before chemo and that is an indicator that they are possibly non-cancer blast cells!!! For you home gamers, blast cells can be normal and/or cancerous. Since the average person has about 2%, when a person has over 20% it is considered leukemia. When diagnosed, my count was 65%. Normally blast cells divide and mature into specialty cells such as red blood cells, white blood cells… When the blast cells are cancerous, they only build up.
Miracle #1 and step one in the best case scenario nearly completed!
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers that have blessed me and my family so much in this first step. Please keep the prayers coming.
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