This is low

Bag of platelets, originally uploaded by Len Taing.
That bag of platelets is inside of me now

Another trip to the dana farber clinic today revealed that i’ve reached the nadir/low point in my recovery. As she was drawing my blood to be tested, i told my nurse A* that i knew that i was due for a bag of platelets because over the weekend i noticed some of the symptoms of having a low platelet count. the first symptom i noticed were several petechia spots all over my body. when your body’s platelets drop, you literally start springing tiny leaks all over. these leaks reveal themselves in the form of petechia–small reddish-purple bruises that come from broken capillaries. the other symptom i get when my platelets are low is a slight but constant taste of blood in my mouth–which i also had over the weekend.

when A* came out to tell me the results of my blood counts, she asked “Guess how much your platelets are?”. jokingly, i tried to think of the lowest number i could think of, “Uh two?”. surprisingly, i was right. what’s shocking is that this is the lowest that my platelet counts have been. to put this in perspective, the average human walks around with a count that ranges from 155-400. my count was 2! i asked A* if she’d ever seen lower–she’s seen 1 before, but never 0. so i guess i now have something to aim for.

A* said i was definitely due for a bag of platelets. i really wanted two or three bags of platelets, but i think there’s a one-per-customer limit. incidentally–for those who are interested, my white blood counts dropped to 0.3 (which means that i’m at high risk of infection–normally the wbc levels are from 4.0-10.0). and my red blood counts are 27.3–still low, but not low enough for a transfusion.

there are some true dangers of having crazily low platelet counts like this–just ask the hemophiliacs out there. for example, in march, i went in for a routine eye-glass exam. the ophthalmologist took a peak into my eyes and said that he noticed some scarring. [pause for effect] scarring in my retina!!! when i asked him where this scarring might come from–he said that its related to the leukemia–i probably coughed a little too hard and that was enough to cause the bleeding in my eyeballs [pause] bleeding in my eyeballs!!! yeah, so low platelets is not just about bleeding to death from some paper cut, it also encompasses crazy shit that you’ll never expect, like bleeding into your eyeballs 🙂 (ok i guess i’m getting too much pleasure from typing that).

~ by lentaing on June 30, 2008.