Emily's blood counts greatly reduced, so we reduce chemo

I was surprised last week when her ANC was in the 2000's and she had H1N1. Well this week it caught up to her, and her ANC was only 630, meaning she is neutropenic. To remind my readers what Neutropenic means, at a high level. All of us healthy people have White blood cells that fight virus and infection. Emily's chemotherapy suppresses her immune system. Each week she needs to have labs and what they are looking at among other things is her Neutrofil count. Our Neutrophil count describes how many of these T-cells we have to fight virus and disease. If you have a number lower than 1000, you dont' have enough neutrophils to fight an infection or virus, and thus you are classified as Neutropenic. If you aren't on immunosuppresion and you showed up with a number lower than 1000, it would be a very bad sign. I believe HIV patients battle neutropenia as well.

So Emily is neutropenic this week,and most likely with a reduction in 6MP and Methotrexate her levels will return to "normal" or normal for Chemo. however if she gets a fever and is neutropenic it means she has to be hospitalized in an isolation room. We will probably keep her home since it's flu season.