Transfuse or not to transfuse?

Today, we brought Kaitlyn to the clinic for the blood transfusion that was recommended by the on-call doctor over the weekend. They started out by taking her blood again. They wanted to test it and see where her counts were at today. The labs came back about 1/2 an hour later and they were pretty much the same as Friday night. But, after some discussion with the nurse practitioner about white cells and which cells regenerate first, she proved to us that Kaitlyn's counts have bottomed out, but are now regenerating. She told us that her red count was not going to go any lower and should start to climb on it's own. Kaitlyn's red counts were low, but not below the mark where they usually transfuse. They left the decision up to us.

All that information in mind, we decided that the transfusion was not worth the risk of exposing her to other potential diseases and we decided to wait and see what happens. Katie has been acting fine since Saturday and there is still no explanation for the fever, the swelling in her face or the crippling pain that she seemed to be in on Friday night, other than, "it all sounds chemo related".

She has two more days on the oral chemo and then she will have a week off before we start round 2 of the new drugs.

She only has two more rounds before she reaches maintenance. Please pray that Katie has the strength to handle the next two rounds.