She has been diagnosed with something called Polycythemia Vera (PV), which is technically classified as a cancer. It's not an actual cancer in the sense of malformed cells rapidly multiplying, but there is an increased risk of it turning into leukemia later. The diagnostic clincher was a bone marrow aspiration that was done early December, we go the results back the week before we left for Christmas in Phoenix and it confirmed a genetic mutation that was a key signature in the diagnosis.
There's still some stuff to work through. It's definitely a myeloproliferative disorder, and there's a very slim chance that it's not PV and that it's a lesser form of polycythemia, but we're talking like less than a 5% chance.
It's a weird blood thing where your body overproduces RBCs and makes 'em big. And living at high altitude causes your body to overproduce RBCs and make 'em big because of the lower oxygen levels. So it's likely that we'll have to eventually move to lower altitude and Russet might have to give up astronomy and move into a different field, or possibly a different specialization within astronomy.
I wrote about it at some length a while back, but it's possible that coincided with Chris's death and you were more than a little preoccupied then.
Russet's oncologist in Las Cruces wants her to set up with a local one for easier access, and we've been trying to since the first of the year and it's been nothing but Three Stooges, or so it seems. We got her an Apple Watch 7 on our way to Phoenix as it monitors blood oxygenation and an iPhone 13 Mini since her old iPhone doesn't work with the new Apple Watches, and it confirmed her night time oxygenation was dropping into the low 80s, so we're hoping that an oxygen concentrater, or CPAP, or eventually living at lower elevation will improve things for her.
There are two main treatments for PV. One is a chemotherapy drug used for leukemia to literally destroy RBCs to reduce the count, the other is phlebotomy to literally draw out blood to reduce the count. There is some hope that a gene edit through CRISPR might be able to supply a cure in the future.
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She has been diagnosed with something called Polycythemia Vera (PV), which is technically classified as a cancer. It's not an actual cancer in the sense of malformed cells rapidly multiplying, but there is an increased risk of it turning into leukemia later. The diagnostic clincher was a bone marrow aspiration that was done early December, we go the results back the week before we left for Christmas in Phoenix and it confirmed a genetic mutation that was a key signature in the diagnosis.
There's still some stuff to work through. It's definitely a myeloproliferative disorder, and there's a very slim chance that it's not PV and that it's a lesser form of polycythemia, but we're talking like less than a 5% chance. It's a weird blood thing where your body overproduces RBCs and makes 'em big. And living at high altitude causes your body to overproduce RBCs and make 'em big because of the lower oxygen levels. So it's likely that we'll have to eventually move to lower altitude and Russet might have to give up astronomy and move into a different field, or possibly a different specialization within astronomy. I wrote about it at some length a while back, but it's possible that coincided with Chris's death and you were more than a little preoccupied then. Russet's oncologist in Las Cruces wants her to set up with a local one for easier access, and we've been trying to since the first of the year and it's been nothing but Three Stooges, or so it seems. We got her an Apple Watch 7 on our way to Phoenix as it monitors blood oxygenation and an iPhone 13 Mini since her old iPhone doesn't work with the new Apple Watches, and it confirmed her night time oxygenation was dropping into the low 80s, so we're hoping that an oxygen concentrater, or CPAP, or eventually living at lower elevation will improve things for her. There are two main treatments for PV. One is a chemotherapy drug used for leukemia to literally destroy RBCs to reduce the count, the other is phlebotomy to literally draw out blood to reduce the count. There is some hope that a gene edit through CRISPR might be able to supply a cure in the future.