What a roller coaster

LeeWithAmusingExpression
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Here a nice picture of my cousine lee-anne.

Anyways... let me tell you about my platelet roller coaster.

On Wednesday two weeks ago I went for a blood test because I had a bruise and the test came back in the 40s. Not good. Anyways, continued along as normal and tested again on Friday afternoon.

My count was 18k.

I wanted to beat my head through the wall.

I phoned my haemotologist and she first thought I should go onto cortisone, and asked me if I wanted to go into hospital and get it intravenously.

I said, I only have petichiae on my feet, lets wait until the symptoms get worse. She made me swear that if I had nose bleedings, headache etc I must go straight to Emergency and that I must not pass Begin. I agreed.

Oh. That night there was an already organised birthday party/shabbas dinner; which I went to and tried to not be despondent - but I was soooooooooo tired suddenly.

On Saturday morning I tested again....

19k. It was up

I phoned the doctor and she said OK I don't have to take cortisone yet. But she doubted it would lift and we would have to make some kind of call on Monday as she believes anything below 20k should be treated aggressively.

I spent the day in bed.

Sunday morning I did a count.
19k again.

I studied the Talmud in the evening on illness and sickness. Tracate Brachot page 4 or 5.
I slept and dreamt that night. I dreamt that I looked at my feet and there were no petichiae.

I woke up and immediately checked my ankle and feet, I couldn't see ANY petichiae. I moved into bright light... and... they were still there except a bit fainter.

I tested and my count was 27k

I was ecstatic. This meant I was above 20k and the doctor would not make me treat. I saw the doctor that morning, she said she doubted I would go above 50k and she wrote a letter of motivation to the medical insurance for a treatment of Mabthera (I have been in remission for 1 1/2 years since I took Mabthera.)

I then phoned the medical insurance every day pushing to get the medication authorised. (I will write more on this later as I kept comptemporaneous notes on the conversations with the call center.)

Oh and I also wrote the second year computer science programming exam I am studying through UNISA. I tested after the exam (Wednesday last week) and the count was 65k.

Above 50. Nice.

I tested on Monday this week.

My count was 285k.

How about that!

UNISA exams written.

I wrote my last of my 5 UNISA exams today. It was an iffy exam, the iffiest of the lot. We'll see.

Sandra did her Histology "spotter" practical exam today. Tomorrow she has her Anatomy "spotter" practical exam, and then she only has one left. Physics on the 17th.

Almost out of the woods.

later...

Well Done Sandra!!!

Sandra just got an SMS from her Biology lecture. Actually she got it from an unknown number so she called it and then aplogised profusely for three minutes, aplogising for disturbing her Biology lecture so late at night.

Sandra wrote Biology last week and came home a bit distressed and concerned and asking questions if she got 40% for her test, and 74.8% for her year mark; will they let her through the year. She was complaining constantly about how unfair the exam was; and that the questions were obscure and did not truly test students' knowledge. She was also very frustrated with the number of questions presented in a multiple choice format; which involved subtle differences in the English descriptions of biological processes; which she found frustrating.

Anyways....

She got 75%...

Yes! Thats what the SMS from her Biology teacher was informing her!

So in a foreign language, in difficult acamedic English, involving learning vast tracts of information; involving writing paragraphs in English to describe subtle complicated processes -
Sandra was awarded a distinction.

So Sandra is quite clearly a super super super woman!

Lucky me to have such a star by my side!

later...

(Lets hope the same effect occurs in other courses.)