6/18/10 - Joe's Hemoglobin Continues to Fall

Everything has been going great with Joe's chemotherapy with the exception of his hemoglobin counts. The hemoglobin is the part of the red blood cell that carries oxygen from the lungs to the other body parts. His hemoglobin was low after his surgery from losing a large amount of blood and has never fully recovered. The chemotherapy medicine attacks rapidly reproducing cells in the body which includes both good and bad cells. Even though the cancer is being targeted and destroyed, it also destroys the good blood cells that rapidly reproduce, like red blood cells that include the hemoglobin. Joe has been able to maintain good counts in the other important categories, specifically platelets (which affect the clotting of the blood) and ANC (absolute neutrophil count...white blood cells which affect the ability to fight infections). The hemoglobin count has gradually decreased below the lower limit of 8.0 over the past few weeks. This is not uncommon due to the chemotherapy that he receives but this week it should have started to turn around. The doxorubicin and dactomycin medicines make the blood counts decrease but the vincristine (which is the only medicince he received the past 2 weeks) should not have affected his blood counts. The past few weeks Joe's hemoglobin counts dropped from 8.1 to 7.9 to 7.7 and now this week even further to 7.1. This seems to be a mystery to the oncologist and they will continue to test Joe's blood and consult a specialist. The good part is that Joe has still been very energetic for such low counts. Most likely, Joe will need to receive a blood transfusion next week as he will be receiving the doxorubicin that will continue to lower his current blood counts. Please pray that the blood transfusion will give Joe the boost he needs to get his body to start producing hemoglobin more quickly and that there is not any underlying factors that are causing his body to slowly produce the hemoglobin. It is frustrating that everything is going so well and then there is this little bump in the road with his blood, but we are confident that this issue will resolve itself and God will provide healing each step of the way. Joe has been maintaining normal activity and by the end of the day we have started to notice an extreme fatigue set in. The doctor does not believe that extra rest will help with his hemoglobin counts so as long as Joe wants to be out at the baseball field watching his brother play and playing with his friends at the games, we have allowed him. His morale is important, too, so we are letting him make decisions on his activities as much as we can.

As for the morning at the clinic, Kevin took Joe and the older boys today. I had an appointment with Caleb so we did not join them. Joe took one of his favorite stuffed animals and performed "surgery" on him at the clinic. With the help of the Child Life specialists at the clinic, Joe inserted a port into "Black Bear" so they can both be just alike. Joe can now pretend to give medicine to his bear through the port and perform some of the procedures to his stuffed animals that the doctors and nurses perform on him. He thought this was awesome and Ben and Will enjoyed watching it, too. Below are some pictures of the "surgery".

After clinic, Kevin and the boys met our friends, Mark and Lori Gorman, for lunch at the Hibachi Grill. Since I wasn't there today, I sent the camera with Kevin and got some interesting photos when they returned. I had to cull through quite a few goofy ones:) Thank you for your continued prayers and for checking in on Joe!