November 18, 2015

Health Update

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I’m afraid the news can’t always be good on the health front. I got my latest lab work yesterday and it wasn’t encouraging. My immune system, after stabilizing last month, weakened again. My neutrophil count is down to 1500, which isn’t quite in the danger zone but is mighty close. At the same time, my M-protein marker, which measures the level of cancerous cells in my bone marrow, went up from 0.55 to 0.61. It looks like 0.55 might be as good as it gets, and that’s nowhere close to zero. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that I can try a higher dose of my current chemo med with my immune system already so compromised.

Any single month can be an outlier, so there’s no need to panic yet. I’ll have another set of lab work in December, and I’ll see my oncologist shortly after that. If the numbers haven’t improved, I’ll try a little harder than usual to drag some actual information out of her.

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In this month’s Summer Membership Drive, we’ve got to raise $200,000 to support more crucial investigations. This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. We cannot do this work without you.

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