Encouraging News

February 21

Dr. Laskin left me a message Saturday morning with disturbing news: my platelets had dropped, even on the steroids, to 45 thousand. I didn’t get this message until later in the day, when we had returned from Sheona and Jon’s, already bummed out about the cancellation and with me starting to feel the effects of suspending the hormones. This news was what did me in and I fell into a state of despair and anxiety that I can only compare to what I felt with each miscarriage. The frightening feeling of being betrayed by my own body.

It was too late when I got the news to call Dr. Laskin and ask him the million questions that had started to take shape in my exhausted brain, so instead I wept and felt sorry for myself and Andrés and I hugged and shook our heads and just sighed a whole lot. What were we going to do now!?

The reason this news is so bad, is that if my platelet count isn’t over 100 thousand, the risk of bleeding post retrieval is too high for Dr. Laskin to take. If we don’t have the certainty that the steroids will be there for me on the retrieval date, then what’s the point of taking them? I already developed a resistance to the alternative, IV Ig, when I was last pregnant, so what were my options? I did a bit of research when I calmed down and found a few alternatives. Potent meds. Could I take them while on fertility drugs? Anyways, you get the picture. Me, trying to answer my own medical questions and playing out all the scenarios. I’ve definitely been there before.

This was a long weekend, with Monday being a new Ontario holiday: Family Day. It kind of made things worse in a sense, since I had to wait until Tuesday to speak to Dr. Laskin. When he finally called, he reassured me. He was certainly a bit baffled, but he gave me the rundown of options, many of which I had already read about, and said not to panic. Then, he offered the possibility that the test was incorrect. It had been done at the clinic’s lab, a lab I trusted more than my own neighbourhood lab, but mistakes do happen.

My neighbourhood lab is one of the most depressing and inefficient labs I’ve ever been to. The only reason I go to them is that they’re very close and I, unfortunately, have the pleasure of visiting them often - sometimes every week. I do my best to procrastinate and make excuses not to go when I have to, but the possibility of them righting a wrong that weighed so heavily on us was strong enough to get me out the door in a hurry to get my bloodwork repeated. And blessed be... my platelets were at 120 thousand!! Even though I’m in the process of weaning myself off the steroids till the next cycle. This is the best news we could have received. Now, business as usual. Now, we don’t have to play over possible scenarios and try out new drugs. Now, we can wait until we get our periods and even toy with the idea of using the pill this time around. We have options!! HURRAH!!