Zero

• Hemoglobin 14.4 (WHO normal 14.0-17.3)
• Absolute neutrophil count 1.7 (normal 1.4-7.5)
• Absolute lymphocyte count 0.2 (normal 0.8-5.0)
• White blood cell count 2.4 (normal 4-10)
• Red blood cell count 4.47 (normal 4.5-5.9)
• Platelet count 175 (normal 150-450)

These counts are actually OK. WBC is low, but mainly because of the expected low lymphocytes; neutrophils (more important) are normal. RBC is just barely subnormal, within the error bar. Hemoglobin is just fine, thanks, and correlates with how I'm feeling, i.e. healthy and normal. Incredibly, I've only had one cold this winter, and it lasted less than 2 days.

But today's real news — came in last night from my NIH research blood draw last week — is the flow cytometry:

The patient has a history of hairy cell leukemia and is being evaluated post therapy. The white blood cell count is 12.4 K/uL with 10 percent lymphocytes and 13.1 percent monocytes (02/09/2011). There is no definitive immunophenotypic evidence of hairy cell leukemia. The B-cells are polyclonal with no evidence of atypical antigen expression.

Yow!

This doesn't mean the HCL is gone. It could still be (and almost certainly is) hiding in the bone marrow, since the flow cytometry only measures the peripheral blood But it does mean the levels are quite low now. They may go down even further before I start rituxan in May. That's what we want — rituxan's good at cleaning up stragglers, but not so good at the frontal assault.