Today Ashley was supposed to go to the Shand's Hospital Liver Clinic. However, she came home from school yesterday saying she threw up in her class bathroom. No, my very smart intelligent daughter did not tell her teacher which means she did not go to the school clinic which means I did not get a call from the school to pick her up. So as we are driving home from school yesterday afternoon, Ashley informs me that she lost her lunch in the class bathroom. I rolled my eyes because of course she would get sick the day before we leave to go to Gainesville to see her liver doctor.It's been running around, this virus, at every school in our county, everyone is sick...the kids, the teachers, and even some parents. It seems however that Ashley has been sick with something since Thanksgiving, I can't seem to keep her well. We keep our house clean, sanitize, practice good hand washing and hygiene so why is Ashley getting sick?
Last night my husband and I contemplated on whether to cancel Ashley's appointment or if we should go ahead and take her to the Liver Clinic...fever and all. We decided we would wait to see how Ashley was in the morning. Well, Ashley got up this morning to get ready for school, ate breakfast and went right back to bed...she is still asleep as I type this. I took her temperature, not alarmingly high at 99.3 but for her a temperature none-the-less since her normal temp is 97.3. We then decided to cancel her appointment at the liver clinic since the last thing we want to do is get anyone else sick or put Ashley in an atmosphere where she will get sicker or worse come down with some other illness. Everyone knows that hospitals and doctors offices harbor more germs, viruses, bugs than anywhere else. We can always reschedule the appointment for a later date and time, when Ashley isn't sick.
We did get Ashley's lab results back. They are not horrible but not great either. Great would be normal lab results and of course Ashley's are not. The good news is that her liver functions are all normal. However, she appears to have some liver inflammation because her AST and ALT are elevated slightly. Her platelet count is as usual low but it is now lower than the last results, her platelets are at 107,000 (normal is 140,000 to 400,000). For those of you who aren't versed on liver disease a low platelet count just means that Ashley's platelets are being eaten up by her spleen which is why Ashley has a huge spleen. A low platelet count also means that Ashley has thrombocytopenia. Ashley's white blood cell count is low, which indicates an infection. And Ashley's absolute lymphocytes and monocytes are low.
The latter two are a new low for Ashley. When I first researched these I had a slight panic when I read and I quote, "a low absolute monocyte almost always indicates cancer." Since I knew that this was not the case for Ashley I continued my research and found something that answered my question. When a person has a low monocyte it means they have an infection when their lymphocyte is low it means they have the inability to fight off that infection. This makes sense. With Ashley's low white blood cell count, low absolute monocytes and lymphocytes, she has a viral infection. A viral infection is much better than cancer. I can deal with a viral infection; cancer not so much. Can you imagine...dealing with two life threatening diseases...cancer and liver disease. NIGHTMARE!
I need to go check on my little girl. Pray with me that she doesn't get worse.
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