Dark humor with my 2nd Rituximab infusion

So I went for my second Rituximab infusion and they ran a CBC right off the bat. About an hour later my infusion nurse comes dancing around the corner with the print out of my results. She excitedly announced to me that my count is 24.
(It was 20 last week)
She gave me the copy - it was the screen print that I guess the doctors see - different from when I access my file.
Anyway, the platelet result was coded "low - panic."

So when I was all finished up, my nurse reminded me not to forget to tell my husband the good news - about the 24. And I said to her "Only here would a person be excited about a test result that has a panic code next to it!"
Without even so much as a pause, she said, "Oh honey, don't look at that stuff!"

It's kind of like dark humor. When I tell family and friends my numbers, they are horrified. But I'm at 24 now - and to me, that's almost 30 and that calls for a celebration skip around the room.

I hear a lot of people say that the Rituximab kicked in for them between the second and third infusions. I sure hope I end up being one of them! But even if I'm not - I'm sure my nurse will somehow put a positive spin on it and what a difference it makes!

When we threw my kid an impromptu "platelet party," by taking her friends to dinner when she had a count of 50, our nurse friends didn't understand. They had not lived with a child whose count never seemed to rise above 30.
Norma

See Norma, YOU get it too!

A platelet party???? What a fantastic idea! If this Rituximab ends up working for me, maybe I'll throw myself one.

We went to a funky music store last night and they had all these weird candies/buttons/etc. And one of them was a red candy juice that came in a what looked like an infusion bag - looked like blood. I forgot what it was called - they had a green one too, was supposed to be zombie blood.
But anyway, I held the red one for a long time and I was thinking, "What can I do with this?"

But now I'm thinking - what a great thing for a platelet party goodie bag!

That's awesome what you did for your daughter. And I'm sure doing stuff like that erases some of the bad memories she has associated with this condition and replaces it with some silly, fun memories.

I'm amazed it was actually coded to say 'panic' on the results. And we talk about how the inexperienced doctors panic with counts we know to be fairly safe. It's because they are taking marching orders from a computer coded indicator?
Erica

I want a platelet party!! My last count was way up, 76 after a year in the 40s-50s!!! What a great idea!

I had a test come back flagged as "critically high" once. It was the VDRL (APS related). Couldn't do diddly about it.

Yeah, 'panic' is a weird thing to see on a print out. Wonder who encoded that?

I looked at my print out again. Here are the different code levels:

Panic/Critical <---- That's what they called me at 3:00 a.m. when I first learned that I was at 10 and got my diagnosis.

Panic/Review Alert <---- That's what I am now at 20.

High

Low

Abnormal


Umm.. wouldn't anything high or low be abnormal?

It is interesting to see what the doctors see.

very odd to put the word panic on it! A low number really isn't anything to panic about, unless there are nasty symptoms included! The worst I ever got was criticaly low. My hematologist didn't admit me when I was at a 1, but the emergency doctor admitted me with a count of 4! I think he extremely over-reacted. I had no symptoms except the bruises.
I've never thought about a party either. Maybe after an extended time of higher numbers. I went yesterday and they rose from 44 to 48! I can live with that! Maybe a party isn't that far off!