"Is your red cell platelet count good enough to let you ski?" asked my cousin-in-law, Dr. Bob.
Bob's an emergency room doc for whom I've a lot of respect as one who's on his game as a diagnostician with excellent broad medical knowledge. ER guys see it all, after all.
A question like that, coming from a genuine, licensed, for-real doctor, should've given me pause.
It didn't.
"I'm okay," I replied without hesitance, and perhaps a bit to much certainty. "Dr. MDS says 100,000 is the bottom line. As long as I'm above that, I'm okay."
He did say that, Dr. MDS.
But, if I acted like I was 100 percent sure, I was faking it. The season's first fall on the slopes looms ghostly in the back of my brain. I distinctly recall last season's first fall: a major crash on a steep slope in Jackson Hole in which I pretty sharply cracked the back of my head on hard ground. It was a real-life ad for helmet wearing (which I always do).
Head trauma ranks among the most salient watch-out-fors for those with low platelet counts. Smacking your head with low counts can, I understand, lead to brain hemorrhage. Even for guys like me whose head is most likely empty.
Now, my counts have been bottoming out at 112,000 to 120,000-ish, so I'm above Dr. MDS's bottom line. And, as time moves along between Shots Weeks, the count rises nicely, having gone as high as 179,000, which is higher than they were before MDS arrived.
Still, that little birdie of doubt tweets in the background. What if I really crash?
Well, it's like the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." "So, don't do that."
Crashing might not be an issue this weekend. There's little or no snow up in New England where I'm bound. But, in the long run, I guess I'd better implement Plan-A: stay upright, stupid.
Bob's an emergency room doc for whom I've a lot of respect as one who's on his game as a diagnostician with excellent broad medical knowledge. ER guys see it all, after all.
A question like that, coming from a genuine, licensed, for-real doctor, should've given me pause.
It didn't.
"I'm okay," I replied without hesitance, and perhaps a bit to much certainty. "Dr. MDS says 100,000 is the bottom line. As long as I'm above that, I'm okay."
He did say that, Dr. MDS.
But, if I acted like I was 100 percent sure, I was faking it. The season's first fall on the slopes looms ghostly in the back of my brain. I distinctly recall last season's first fall: a major crash on a steep slope in Jackson Hole in which I pretty sharply cracked the back of my head on hard ground. It was a real-life ad for helmet wearing (which I always do).
Head trauma ranks among the most salient watch-out-fors for those with low platelet counts. Smacking your head with low counts can, I understand, lead to brain hemorrhage. Even for guys like me whose head is most likely empty.
Now, my counts have been bottoming out at 112,000 to 120,000-ish, so I'm above Dr. MDS's bottom line. And, as time moves along between Shots Weeks, the count rises nicely, having gone as high as 179,000, which is higher than they were before MDS arrived.
Still, that little birdie of doubt tweets in the background. What if I really crash?
Well, it's like the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." "So, don't do that."
Crashing might not be an issue this weekend. There's little or no snow up in New England where I'm bound. But, in the long run, I guess I'd better implement Plan-A: stay upright, stupid.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment