A Good Phone Call and Contemplating a Scar

Max's doctor called this evening. They have been tracking his reticulocyte count since the beginning. This is the percentage of young red blood cells in the same. His reticulocyte count has been around 1% since they started tracking it in July. In a normal situation, a person should have a reticulocyte count of around 1%, but, if you are anemic, the bone marrow should be making extra baby red cells to make up for it, so that count should be higher. If someone is anemic and they have a reticulocyte count of around 1%, then it is an indication that there is a problem with their bone marrow. Back in November, Dr. Ebb said he was hoping to see a number in the 4-5 range. (It was still between 1 and 2 back then.) Well, they got the results from the sample they took on Friday and it was 4.5%!

Max noticed the scar on his chest today for the first time. I guess he has had a bandaid in that spot since the surgery to put the portocath in back in September. He tends to get rather attached (no pun intended) to his bandaids and won't let us take them off, so I am usually talking him into letting me remove the one from the last test in order to put the numbing cream on for the next test. In other words, there is always something in that area. Well, today the bandaid fell off. I hadn't noticed, but Max saw the red scar and asked me "What kind of bandaid is that?" I told him it wasn't a bandaid, but that it was a scar, and tried to explain that when they put the thing in his chest for his blood tests (it leaves a raised spot on his chest, so you can feel it), they left a scar. Then, I showed him a couple of scars on my body (he wanted to see the one on my chest but I don't have one, so he had to settle for the couple on my head and arms) and then we looked at the one on Daddy's face from when he was bitten by a dog when he was a child. He told Josh all about how it was from when the doctors put the blood test thing inside of him. He never fails to amaze me.