Platelets

Normal platelet ranges from 150 - 400. When Celeste was in the hospital at the beginning of July her platelets were at 40. This was due to the lymphoma. That is not a good level but not an alarming level. When doing chemotherapy, a persons platelets will drop low between 6 -10 days afterward. Because Celeste is in the hospital they check all of her blood counts daily. Her white and red blood cells are recovering well from the chemo treatment. On day 4 (Sunday) her platelet count was 12. Since Sunday morning they have given her at least 2 bags of platelet transfusions a day, sometimes 3. After a transfusion the platelets will rise to 25 - 28 and then within a few hours drop again. Monday night they dropped to 7. Tuesday night they went up to 22 and dropped back down to 9 this morning. They have told us that one of the things keeping her in the hospital is her platelet level. This morning they explained to us that it is her spleen that is causing the problem. It is so enlarged that it is gobbling up all the platelets they give her or she trys to make on her own. We have not met with the Oncologist today to determine where we go from here.