Reality Check :)

Ok, the initial euphoria of the blood test results has worn off and we realize that the results don't mean that Megan's illness has floated off into oblivion. It does mean that she feels much better for the moment and it does give us some more clues as to what's going on with her.

A week ago, Megan's neutrophil count (that is a type of white blood cell) was 600. Normal is 1500-7000. When it hits 500 and below, your immune system is compromised to the point that you can get sick just from the bacteria that lives in your body naturally. Usually you don't see levels that low unless you are going through chemo. Yesterday her neutrophil count was almost 3000. From what I understand, your body produces a new batch of blood cells approximately every 21 days. Three weeks ago, Megan had about three days without a fever. It looks like her bone marrow is producing neutrophils like it's supposed to, but somehow they are dying or being destroyed by something after they are released into her body. Now we just have to verify that and then figure out why and how. The fever is probably only her body trying to fight off viruses that she has caught as soon as her neutrophil levels aren't high enough to stop her from getting sick. If this is the case (at this point, it's all conjecture as we only have the two sets of blood work to go off of), then abut every three weeks, we will have a few days where we can take Megan to public places and she won't get sick. We'll have to see what continued testing tells us about her. Hopefully we'll be able to figure it out and hopefully it's something that she can be treated for.