New news.

Yesterday I waited all day long to hear from the hematologist, and by dinner time I had given up, thinking, of course, he has gone home to his family and is eating his own dinner right now. Then, by the time I headed off to a Tupperware party (yes... another one), I figured on when I would call him the next day. I gave him until lunch time, then I would pester again. And when I curled into bed last night, ready to give myself away to sleep, it was actually kinda far from my mind.

But, lo! At 9:45pm, our phone rang.

Now, usually, when anyone calls after 9:30pm, it's my parents, and that is why I've set up a special ring for them, so at least we know (yes, Mom and Dad. You have a "special" ring). But, at 9:45pm, there was no special ring. So I kicked Matt out of bed faster and he caught the phone on it's fourth and final ring.

Our awesome hematologist was calling us at 9:45pm, from the hospital, to let us know what was up. How cool, and at the same moment, how serious can this be?

I had called the cardiology nurse earlier in the day to see what the results were and she said that the Hematologist would call us, and at her last word, "okay?", there was the slightest tone drop, which in my body-language reading skills implies "poor thing, more bad news". So, I picked up the slightest bit of that, so I wasn't expecting Piper's blood work to have gotten any better. At least I had that kinda confirmed during the day.

And true, her blood work that was taken on Tuesday from the lovely BCBioMed lady has not gotten any better, but is back down to 0.01 like when it was taken at the hospital.

So now what?

The hematologist laid out a few options, and I am starting to understand this whole new pack of medical words every time they are repeated.

He thinks,

a) Piper is fighting something at the moment, some sort of bacterial infection (even cutting teeth maybe?)

b) she has Autoimmune Neutropenia

Autoimmune Neutropenia kinda means (and read the link, as they describe it better, and very close to what the hematologist has been saying) that Piper is actually producing WBC's just fine, but there is something that is destroying her WBC's before they can be tested in blood work. So she can make them just fine, which is great, but they don't do much or get very far. Not so great.

The hematologist said that this might be something that will just ride itself out, in a few months to a year or so. He said that he will pass this on to the cardiologist and the surgeon and see how urgent they feel her surgery is and whether or not it needs to happen sooner or later.

If it is sooner, there is a drug called G-CSF that will help stimulate the production of WBC's so that she is stronger, but he won't give it to her unless he knows more about her blood, and specifically, her blood factory, so he will have to do a bone marrow test. This is only if the cardiologist and surgeon feel surgery needs to happen sooner. If not, I don't see why we wouldn't just wait it out and wait for it to correct itself.

For the bone marrow test, in a baby, they would need to use light anaesthesia, to keep her airway clear (not too sure what that means, but that is what he told us). With that bone marrow test done, he will know how much G-CSF to use during surgery. He did say that it isn't 100% that it will do what it should, but it is better than nothing.

G-CSF is the drug they give Chemo patients, which still scares me. I just hate being this close to all these oncological words (even if oncological isn't actually a word?).

So, this coming Monday, instead of going to my friendly, neighborhood BCBioMed, we have to go to BCCH again and there in the Heme/Onc clinic, they will do some more blood tests that are a bit more specific than the ones he originally ordered. But they will give him more information on what to do and where to go from here.

Yes, this means another hospital day, but he said it should be an in and out thing. Let's hope...