Testing our Patience

Today is the big day for Tyler's Day 14 tests. He had a bone marrow test scheduled this morning at 11am and a lumbar puncture scheduled at 1pm. The marrow test started as scheduled and they got a great bone chip from Tyler's pelvic bone for the biopsy portion. Unfortunately, when they got to the bone marrow aspiration (where the liquid marrow is drawn), they just couldn't get any to flow. They tell us this is not entirely unusual for post-chemo patients, but I was disappointed that they couldn't get that portion of the test complete. They tell us they will get enough information from the samples they got to determine if the cytarabine worked or not. The next bone marrow will be on Day 28.

The lumbar puncture has been delayed to try to finagle Tyler's platelet count up. The test requires a platelet level of 50 and Tyler has been hovering around 5-15 for awhile now. Added to that, they are not seeing much of an increase with each bag of platelets that he receives. They decided to test him to see if he has developed antibodies to blood products.

Anyways... They gave him a bag of platelets yesterday and 3 units today. After the 2nd bag, his platelet count was up to 33. After the 3rd bag, his platelet count was still at 33, so we're expecting the radiology folks to balk at doing the procedure today. He's got his 4th (and final) unit of the day hanging now so that the platelets can be running while they go into the procedure, but that is our last shot for today.

Hooray! They just announced that they will take him, despite the low platelet count. Hopefully they can get his spinal fluid to flow today. It seems to be a problem for them to get a good sample.