Monday report

I go to Dana-Farber for a checkup every five to six weeks now, and yesterday was my day.

Everything was good except for GVHD acting up a little in my liver, meaning I have to increase the prednisone again to 7.5 mg. a day. Every time I go down past this level, my liver function numbers increase slightly, causing me to have to go back up.

It could be much, much worse, but it's frustrating because I need to stay on several other drugs while I am on prednisone. I thought it was a bad idea to stay on prednisone too long, and Dr. Alyea said that while it's true at higher levels, many patients just have to hover in the single digits indefinitely.

Otherwise, my white blood count was normal at 8.1, hematocrit almost normal at 31.4 (normal is 34.8-43.6), and platelets up a little to 86 (normal is 155-410).

My assignment was to go to the U.S. Open and report back to him.

As for the optometrist who left that odd message Friday, it turns out that, given my mother's glaucoma history, he wanted me to schedule an additional test to measure peripheral vision so that we could use it as a reference point later.

He apologized for the alarming call.

No, I didn't really think my brain was going to ooze out through my eyeballs, and I did settle down and figure that it was something procedural. Yet I did want to advise him, but refrained, that if you want to call patients late on a Friday afternoon when they can't return your call, just say, "I wanted to schedule additional tests as a reference point given your history," rather than, "I need to talk to you about the film I took of your eye."

Why create any unnecessary concerns?