Up and Down

You will realise that both of us are not comfortable with continually reporting on health matters. Even though we obviously realise the seriousness of John's condition, our gut reaction remains that health problems are an inconvenience that get in the way of the rest of life. However we have come to the conclusion that reporting on the blog is the easiest way to keep you all informed of the current situation, particularly as it is constantly changing!!

John didn't have the "repairing the electrical circuit in the heart" procedure scheduled for last week, as his platelets were too low. The Cardio department blamed this on the chemo and the Chemo department blamed it on the anticoagulants administered by the Cardio department. There we are left in the middle!! Our local doctor also added his "tu penuth" and changed John's medication. Too many cooks comes to mind.

Much scratching of heads and discussion at Toulouse on Monday when we went for the usual chemo. The platelets had again crashed to an incredible low (normal 250,000, Johns were 33,000). Can you tell that we are becoming armchair experts on platelets!! However, much to our surprise they gave him a transfusion of platelets and then gave him his chemo. Apparently transfusion platelets (more trivia) are of a poor quality so we are not expecting them to permanently boost his own. However he has PASSED HALFWAY, although we do not expect it to be plain sailing all the way from here.

He is scheduled to go into hospital on Thursday for the heart procedure on Friday and home Saturday.