New Hair, New Platelets!!!!

Catherine's hair is starting to grow back and it is white blonde!!!! Catherine has been praying for blonde hair - little did we expect that it would look anything like this! Originally she had dark blonde hair. Not knowing about the effects of chemotherapy on hair, we wonder what will eventually happen. Will it remain white blonde or return to its original colour?

She has been quite miserable today and a bit clingy. She had her blood test earlier, and she will need to have a platelet transfusion tomorrow. Her platelets have gone down to 11 and they transfuse at 10. This will be the first one she has had and will take place tomorrow morning. I noticed today that some bruises were looking particularly dark, so had a feeling we would be back to the hospital tomorrow. Her haemoglobin is fine (9.5) and her neutrophils are low (0.34), which means she is energetic but susceptible to infection. Catherine will be more cheerful about going to the hospital, though, as it is snowing heavily here at the moment. She will be so excited to see the snow.

For those of you who are thinking about donating blood, there is a 'National Platelet Crisis' at the moment, and it will take 12 hours to get Catherine her platelets. Whilst she is not at risk, it really makes you think about the importance of blood donation.

Yesterday we had a small incident where Catherine bit her fingernail and caused it to bleed. I had a momentary concern about her lack of platelets (they clot the blood to stop bleeding) but then the blood flow stopped, so that was ok. Catherine thought it was funny because she didn't want to leak out the blood that they put in her on Friday! The nurse said that we just need to monitor her until the morning, and any concerns, we can just take her in. We are not worried.

Please continue to pray that she does not get an infection or any side effects from treatment, either short term side effects or long term. She continues to do well through this phase of treatment, and we are now looking forward to starting the maintenance phase. Her blood counts need to recover from their low levels before I start any sort of celebration, but we are so thankful that she is getting through this treatment with only minor issues.