Skip to main content

It's always something!

Last night I got a nose bleed. It wasn't very serious, nor did it last very long, but in 2001, I ended up in the emergency room, because I couldn't stop a nose bleed, which resulted after a sneeze. So the fear of that happening again is always in the back of my mind.

The doctors attributed it to the low humidity, and the fact I took three aspirin (that was before my diagnosis) the night before, because of a bad headache.

But while the nose bleed in 2001 occurred after an episode of sneezing, last nights nose bleed was not the result of any trauma. I was just sitting down to dinner, when suddenly, my nose started bleeding.

Still, I wasn't overly concerned because of the brevity of the occurrance, but when I got another nose bleed this morning, again without any trauma, I became a little alarmed.

So I immediately emailed my oncologist to ask if she would add some coagulation tests to my monthly blood work, which coincidentally was due today. (Platelet count alone is not an indication of the quality of the platelets.)

She obliged, and I immediately headed to the hospital to get the blood work.

Well, I just received all the test results, and there doesn't appear to be anything in my blood work to indicate a cause for the two bloody noses. My CBC, hemoglobin, platelets, are not significantly different than what has been reported over the past 2 years (lymphocytes were even down 10% from last month), and the coagulation factors were all within the normal/average range.

So I am feeling a little better now, knowing there doesn't seem to be anything too sinister going on, and hoping the recent nose bleeds are also a result of the low humidity (at 62% today).

I am, however, a little concerned green tea may be a contributor to the nose bleeds. Green tea does act as a blood thinner, and my recent switch to loose leaf green tea (from the cheapest green tea in bags), has no doubt resulted in an increase in the active ingredients in green tea that I am consuming.

I'd sure hate to think I may have to go back to drinking green tea from bags. Besides the fact, I'm anticipating improved results from the loose leaf green tea, it tastes much better.

Oh well, tomorrow should be an exciting day. I'm not going to work, and instead going for a bike ride in the morning. That should be a real test.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fatigue! Part II - Maybe it is real?

Or it's actually Motivational Deficiency Disorder, MoDeD (pronounced Mo-Dee-Dee) for short. In a report this week by Roy Moynihan who reports for the British Medical Journal Austrailian scientists may have come across the reason for extreme laziness . The condition is claimed to affect up to one in five Australians and is characterised by overwhelming and debilitating apathy. Neuroscientists at the University of Newcastle in Australia say that in severe cases motivational deficiency disorder can be fatal, because the condition reduces the motivation to breathe. Neurologist Leth Argos is part of the team that has identified the disorder, which can be diagnosed using a combination of positron emission tomography and low scores on a motivation rating scale, previously validated in elite athletes. "This disorder is poorly understood," Professor Argos told the BMJ. "It is underdiagnosed and undertreated." Who knew? Maybe I have MoDeD, from my attempts to become a...
Post a Comment
Read more

My concerns reaffirmed today

When I was first diagnosed with MCL, I pretty much read just about everything I could get my hands on, I attended various conferences, and I talked to anyone who would listen. One of the most important lessons I learned, and which I've mentioned numerous times before was No one cares more about you than you. But in addition to that, I learned to fear the drug Doxorubicin , AKA Adriamycin, Doxil, Hydroxydoxorubicin, or more affectionately the Red Devil. Besides being a deadly chemical, as is the case with most chemotherapy drugs, it is one of the few chemotherapy drugs known to cause permanent heart damage. I even heard Dr. Sandra Horning , a noted Stanford lymphoma specialist, state at the first lymphoma conference I attended in LA, there was no evidence Doxorubicin provided any added benefit to chemotherapy protocols. This was music to my ears, since Doxorubicin is very common in most lymphoma treatment protocols. And even though Dr. Horning has since changed her tune [which my sk...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tacitly condoning racism?

I learned something very discouraging in my current events class yesterday, there are a lot more racists and bigots out there then you may think. They may not admit it, or they'll claim otherwise, but when someone says they place the blame for what happened in Charlottesville on both sides, or better yet, they don't know where the blame lays, then they are condoning the action of the white supremacists groups, and in my book that is a racist/bigot. The truth is, there should be no doubt where blame for Charlottesville lays. It lays with the white supremacists, neo-Nazi's, KKK, etc, plain and simple! The hatred, bigotry, and misogyny displayed and espoused by these groups, coupled with the tacit approval of President Trump needs to be confronted at all cost, and history tells us so. If only the Jews, in pre-WWII Germany, had confronted the Nazi's in the same manner, Hitler might never have risen to power, and we would not be looking at the prospect of a  third anti...
Post a Comment
Read more