World Rb Week

Edward had his weekly CBC today to monitor his cell lines and most importantly his neutrophil count.  We are two weeks out from the last cycle and this is typically the time when we see his neutrophil count really fall.   Right on schedule, his neutrophil count is down to 30....yep, 30.  As a quick reminder, anything over 1500 is considered normal for the most part.  Severe neutropenia (and the associated risk of infection) starts at anything below 500.  The lowest measured value we saw for the first two cycles was in the mid 200s, so 30 is a new low for us.  Needless to say, Katie and I are both a little more nervous than usual.   But, he is still a happy, rambunctious 16 month old, filled with too much energy for us to be too sad or worried.

World Rb Awareness continues on and we have two videos.  The first is Dr. Carol Shields (Edward's ocular oncologist) at Wills Eye in Philadelphia discussing a brief overview of retinoblastoma.  The second video is a link (I could not figure out a way to embed it) to Dr. Shields discussing the management of retinoblastoma.  This video is a bit more technical, but has a lot of good information. 



Management of Retinoblastoma