ANC's!!!

ANC's are something that we will be very tuned into these days. ANC is the real or actual number of white blood cells that a patient has to fight an infection. White blood cells are the part of the patients blood that work against possible bacteria, fungus, or viruses that may make the patient sick. A normal ANC is greater than 2,500. A safe ANC is greater than 1,000. After chemotherapy, a patient's ANC may drop low as 0. When the ANC drops below 500 , it is important that patient's remain away from crowds and people who have colds, flu, or runny noses. If a patients is in the hospital with ANC below 500, he will be placed in protective isolation (how we spent most of the last month). This is to protect the patient from being exposed to possible infections. Well...We are pleased to say that Liz was well above 600 when we left the hospital! She spent most of the last month at zero!!! Those numbers provided a whole lot of normalcy for her yeserday! Her friend Emma Harvey came over in the morning and they "hungout". Then she went to the movies with her sister Cathy. Liz then spent most of the afternoon with her brother and friend Andy out shopping and finishing with a little Subway! Interesting side note...both Cathy and Jim had very strict orders from their mom that they were not allowed to go anywhere where there were crowds so... Cathy and Liz choose a movie that no one else went to and Jim and Andy scouted out stores in the afternoon time where few people were shopping(a difficult thing to do yesterday!)and finished with a vacant Subway. I think they were perpard to "boxout" anyone that got within 10' of Liz! Haha