The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

Tag: ana

  • ITP Update

    We had the second meeting with Ana’s new hematologist today.  Some good things and some less-desirable things came out of it.

    Good things:

    • Liver and Spleen scan came back negative for any abnormailities
    • 4 or 5 other tests came back negative
    • Test for blood platelet antibodies came back positive
    • This doctor knows that a 9:40am appointment means 9:40am, and not 11:40am.

    He describe, as we’ve known, diagnosing ITP is done by ruling out other causes.  Unlike the previous doctor, he is actually actively running tests and ruling things out.  As expected, everything is ruling out ITP and getting her prepared for a potential treatment by the spleenectomy.

    Not so good things:

    • The prior hematologist has had Ana on a dosage of prednisone that doesn’t really follow the recommended treatment pat for ITP.
    • She needs to be on a higher dosage and THAT will provide a baseline and determine the next actions.  4 Months of her previous prednisone usage gets tossed out essentially, as far as determining treatment path.  That’s depressing.

    So she’ll be on the full dosage of prednisone for two more weeks.  If her levels go down, it’ll indicate that the steroids aren’t doing anything and she’ll be weaned off them and the next step will be the spleen removal.  If after two weeks her counts are stable, they’ll ween her after 4 weeks and keep testing.  If once she’s off, her counts drop, the spleen will be removed.

  • A quick update on Ana

    Along with my recent job change, Ana gave notice to her current employer (Wells Fargo) and accepted a job offer at Memorial Medical Center where she’ll be doing some good ‘ol IT Project Management.  She’s slated to start on February 18th.  Congratulations Ana!

    On a health note, we have gotten a second opinion on the treatment path for her ITP (because we found that she was not, in fact, cured).  The new doctor’s treatment plan is much more aggressive and traditional in its approach – in line with everything we’ve read about ITP.  The current plan is to very very slowly take her off of the prednisone while watching her platelet levels, and if they drop again they will remove her spleen.  In preparation for this possibility, she is getting a Spleen and Liver scan done this morning at the hospital presumably to make sure her liver is in fine shape to take over for a non-existent spleen (yeah, apparently the liver will start to do the spleen’s job in its absence).

  • Someone stole your platelets

    That’s what the nurse told Ana today after getting her blood tested.  Bad results, she’s down to 15,000.

    She was just about weaned off the prednisone, but is now getting bumped back up and will be tested again next week.

  • More Photos

    Ok, uploading a few more photos.  These are just a few of the couple hundred (no kidding!) and are completely unedited

  • Thank you!

    Well everyone, thank you for your thoughts and prayers – they worked great.  I’ll be posting more photos (and video!) as time permits so be sure to keep checking back.

    Lots of people have asked about the name.  Anthony is my middle name and David is a small tribute to all of the great friends I’ve had in past that bore that name.  Shear, Rasch, Mussulman – that’s you.

  • Presenting David’s first Photo

  • 2:10pm

    They just rolled her into the operating room, I’ll be heading in shortly.

  • Time to Roll

    Over 100,000 – time to roll!

  • Platelet Supply

    Ana has successfully drained the hospital of Type A platelets!  This last batch came from the blood bank.

  • Test Results

    Blood test results are back.  She went from 17k to 35k on one bag.  She’s now got two bags in her and they’re starting the third.  So, she’s probably at 50k right now.  They’ll be testing again after this 3rd bag is administered.

    Any surgery won’t be before 2:30.

    Stay tuned.