Just At The End Of The Tunnel

And waiting for the light to enter! The ups and downs in Kartik's health continues. Kartik was a little low for last two days, however, today he seems to be a bit better. The bacteria were on a rampage for some time but I guess now they have been taken care of.

It is interesting to know the cause of infection. Infection spreads from inside the body and not from outside. The bacteria residing in the body themselves take up the swords and cause the riot. They have a free rein because our dear neutrophils have put down the swords! Neutrophils (which constitutes around 40-75% of WBCs) serve as a major defense of the body against a host of infections. However, neutrophils couldn't survive in the highly toxic environment of chemotherapeutic drugs resulting in Neutropenia (abnormally low number of neutrophils in the blood). Taking advantage of this situation various types of bacteria manifests in the blood causing the infection. But as Kartik rightly said, "God Bless the inventors of antibiotics" - the doctors resort to very high antibiotic doses to bring the situations under control.

In order to make the patient recover from Neutropenia faster, the doctors take help from an outside army of soldiers by a means of an injection known as Neupogen that stimulates the bone marrow to increase the production of Neutrophils. Most of the problems are taken care of when sufficient Neutrophils accumulate in the body. Kartik's WBC counts are at 200 today (Normal range is 4,000 - 10,000). Hopefully they should increase in next 4 - 5 days.

Latest update on Kartik before I sign off - he is pulling his hair apart - and quite literally : -)

(You sensed it right! - This one-liner is from Kartik.)