All posts by Mike

More time with the Vampires today; more test results from the lab

Personal stuff

My journey with essential thrombocythemia, by the numbers! I’m supposed to get quarterly lab work to check on my mild bone marrow cancer (which sounds a lot scarier than it really is), but things got kind of crazy so the test today was about a month late. Not that big a deal, since there’s never any evidence of something bad going on (no symptoms), and who wants to visit a hospital right now anyway?

But this set of labwork was actually a bit better than expected. The main issue with my disease is my bone marrow wanting to produce massive numbers of platelets. Platelets are what help your blood to clot, which is good, if, say, someone’s hacked off your arm like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Not so good in normal situations though, because too many platelets can cause blood clots when and where you don’t need them. Thrombosis events, they call them, such as heart attacks, strokes, that sort of thing. Thankfully, besides having a really rare bone marrow cancer, I have a subset of that bone marrow cancer that creates platelets that don’t clot very well. So I can have twice normal and not have an issue. Still, since I’m over 60 (65 in three weeks so maybe I get a Covid vaccination!), they watch this stuff carefully.

The good news is that my platelets have finally gotten down below 600 again. Had to increase the meds a bit to get there, but no side effects from the meds so… all is good. Most importantly, hematocrit level is stable! Why is that important? Because hematocrit is a measure of your blood’s ability to carry oxygen. If you’re into cycling up big mountains (and who isn’t?), that’s a really big deal.

All sorts of other tests that showed nothing very interesting, everything still floating within normal range, no odd trends. Perhaps most important is that the LDH test, which measures an enzyme created when certain types of cells die off in a way that maybe the shouldn’t be, is still within normal range. Significant changes there would mean another bone marrow biopsy, to take a look inside and see what’s going on. In general, you would want to avoid a bone marrow biopsy. Picture someone using a hammer and punch, and your bone is the target. Yeah, fun times! But after what my wife went through for her colonoscopy the other day, I think I’ll take the bone marrow biopsy. She had to switch to a fluid diet for a couple days and your body doesn’t like that. Let’s just say that bone marrow biopsies don’t cause leaks.

It had to happen, but why on such a beautiful day?

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Way up ahead is Jeff Z. Yeah, today I was Jeff’d. And Kevin’d. And Kevin’d again.
I blame it on benadryl. I’d been bugged by a few things that might have kept me from sleeping well, so I took a couple of benadryl before going to bed. And maybe it did help me to sleep, but curiously, it also seemed to put the things that were bugging me into suspended animation; I woke up feeling like I did before I went to sleep. Well, not exactly, because I really didn’t feel like I’d woken up. Benadryl does that to me, which is why I generally stay away from it.

I normally need about 6.5 hours of sleep, but have managed to have some really strong rides with as few as 3 or 4. Those nights where something keeps you up, and you think, no way can I get up and ride in a few hours. But you do anyway, and it goes well. Or… you can take the two 25mg benadryl and sleep despite whatever’s bugging you, but not feel like you really slept and/or not feel like you’re awake when you get up.

So yes, I’ll blame the fact that I couldn’t keep up with Kevin (former kid) and Kevin (former pilot) on benadryl. Making things worse? Just before we get to the park entrance, we hear something behind, almost a literal whoosh, and JeffZ goes shooting by! I was, at that point, still hanging on (just barely) but that was it. I couldn’t hold the wheels of the two Kevin’s and they gradually rode on away, finishing a couple minutes ahead of me. It’s not like I was slow as a dog; other days, either Kevin might be riding at a much slower pace than I rode today.

Once up on Skyline, it was a matter of sucking wheels to stay alive. There were a couple time I had to remind myself how much more difficult it is to lose a wheel and ride on your own than stay on it.

Descending 84 to West Old LaHonda was pretty fast, with JeffZ riding at the front and just a hint of a tailwind. West Old LaHonda was its usual beautiful self, at least once you get past the hairpin at the end of the valley. Even a turkey watching us from the hillside.

Hopefully, come Thursday’s ride, it will be someone else’s turn to be the weakest link.