Thursday, January 25, 2007

+177 Chimerism Shows Very Low CD3 Lymphocytes

WBC 7.7
Hemoglobin 9.2
Platelets 325
Weight 12.6

I don't want to alarm my friends and family, but there appears to be something seriously wrong with David's CD3 T-lymphocytes. The chimerism study results show he is 100% engrafted in his CD15 (platelets), and CD34 (stem cells or progenitor cells), but the problem is with his CD3 (T-cell lymphocytes or called Thymus derived lymphocytes). They went down to 61%.

I'm not receiving much information from Dr. Argawal. She said she will talk with Dr. Weinberg and if there is action to take, she will call me. If no action is necessary that means they will just keep an eye on the lymphocytes.

It's my understanding that all the drugs they have him on are coating the T-cells and killing them off b/c they are causing graft-vs-host disease. Doesn't it make sense that the t-cell numbers would be small b/c of all the drugs?!? This is all craziness. I need to talk with Dr. Candotti of the NIH. He usually has all the answers to my problems.

A huge thank you to my homeschool group who prayed for David and my family tonight! You are a wonderful group of ladies. As I was driving home from the meeting tonight God inspired me to call Dr. Candotti. I love you!

Also, a big thank you to the GVHD listserve. Someone said that being on Tacrolimus (Prograf) reduces magnesium and can cause brittle bones. Apparently, steroids do the same thing. My family takes a liquid Calcium, Magnesium, and Phosphorus, except David. I took the bottle into the Day Hospital for Grace the nutritionist to approve. She approved the calcium supplement as well as his ChildLife liquid multivitamin. The funny thing is that the liquid vitamin does not have Calcium or Phosphorus in it, so she gave me an A+ for choosing these supplements. I was so happy and told her I'll try to come up with more supplements for next week! Thank you to our Father in Heaven. I did not realize what good I was doing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Aimee,
I'm glad to see that everyone is healthy. One thing that Sam's doctors/immunologists have always told us is that with WAS kids even after a BMT the T-cells are always a little different. It was explained to me that the WAS kids previous T-cells sometimes reappear or stay on causing exczema/etc even though the B-cells are 100% donor. No one really knows why. I just find it interesting that there is not a definitive answer. I'm sure that David will be great and we continue to keep you all in our thoughts and prayers.
Kerry Veitch

Anonymous said...

Hi Aimee,
Another faith tester. David has been doing SO well, it's truly been a miracle. God is the God of miracles and He's got another one waiting for this faith tester too! We are all praying for you and thank you for your strong faith that strengthens us whenever we think of you. Love, Mel