Catching Covid May Have Been A Blessing For Me.

ProTruckDriver

ProTruckDriver

🔶 Cancer Warrior 🔶 USN Retired 1969-1992
Location
Virginia Beach Area
Catching Covid last year may have been a blessing for me. June of last year my wife caught Covid. The first few days of her having it I felt fine, she didn't.
Then I started the cough, it was June 17, 2022. She and I tested positive. It took her 2 weeks to get over it and test negative.
Here's why I believe it was a blessing for me to catch this dreaded virus, Covid. As you probably already know I have Leukemia (CLL) for over 11 years now. I have not taken any cancer fighting drugs or chemotherapy for this, still on "Watch and Wait".
On April 29, 2022 I seen my Oncologist on my routine 3 month visit / blood work. He had some bad news for me, my platelets dropped into the low 90's. Normal range is between 150 - 450. He wanted to put me on Imbruvica which has a lot of side effects and you're on it for life, it could give you other cancers also. I asked him if we could wait until the next visit in June, he said okay.
Well in June I caught Covid and had to cancel the appointment. I went through hell for over a month with Covid, I felt like I was going to die for a few days. It took me well over a month to turn negative on the Covid Test.
In August I went to see the Oncologist and did the blood test. My platelet count was 129, which is my normal range with CLL. He was surprised that my platelet count went up. He put me back on "Watch and Wait".
Now you may want to know if I had any Covid vaccines? No I haven't had any. I also was diagnosed with Agammaglobulinemia in 2015. Long word for I don't produce many antibodies. So the Covid and Flu shots are useless to me.
With all these negatives on Covid, I thought I'd share how it was a positive effect on me and my life.:)
 

That's an amazing and interesting story of yours!
Thanks for sharing, and I hope that platelet count continues.
Did the doctor have any theories or clues about it?
 
Kaila said:
Did the doctor have any theories or clues about it?
Click to expand...
He said he had one other patient with the same outcome after catching Covid. He was going to look into it.
As for myself, for a few weeks I had traces of blood coming from my lungs from coughing, in my urine and stools. That my have put my platelets into overdrive to produce more, I don't know.
 

WOW. You have been through quite an ordeal. Your spirit seems strong to have stayed positive through all this. I admire that.

Many of us seniors are battling illnesses and sometimes it feels like I have developed a sort of manic/depressive life style. I wait for ways to have a positive attitude about life sometimes. There doesn't seem to be a magic formula. How has your outlook on staying positive develope?
 
Good luck with the platelets. 90's is still not too bad. You know they fluctuate too. Have you thought about seeing a hematologist just to monitor it? They are the specialists for platelet issues. I'm glad you are back up in the "good" range.
 
birdy said:
Have you thought about seeing a hematologist just to monitor it?
Click to expand...
My oncologist is also a hematologist. He's following my blood work very closely. I was seeing him yearly, now it's every 3 months. He's also watching my other blood counts:
WBC: 46.4 Normal is 4.4 - 10.9
RBC: 4.15 Normal is 4.5 - 6.0
Antibody counts are all low.
He gives me a copy of all the blood work per visit. It lists about 40 things they are following, some high, some low, some normal readings. White Blood Count keeps going up. Last year my count was in the 30's.
 
ProTruckDriver said:
Catching Covid last year may have been a blessing for me. June of last year my wife caught Covid. The first few days of her having it I felt fine, she didn't.
Then I started the cough, it was June 17, 2022. She and I tested positive. It took her 2 weeks to get over it and test negative.
Here's why I believe it was a blessing for me to catch this dreaded virus, Covid. As you probably already know I have Leukemia (CLL) for over 11 years now. I have not taken any cancer fighting drugs or chemotherapy for this, still on "Watch and Wait".
On April 29, 2022 I seen my Oncologist on my routine 3 month visit / blood work. He had some bad news for me, my platelets dropped into the low 90's. Normal range is between 150 - 450. He wanted to put me on Imbruvica which has a lot of side effects and you're on it for life, it could give you other cancers also. I asked him if we could wait until the next visit in June, he said okay.
Well in June I caught Covid and had to cancel the appointment. I went through hell for over a month with Covid, I felt like I was going to die for a few days. It took me well over a month to turn negative on the Covid Test.
In August I went to see the Oncologist and did the blood test. My platelet count was 129, which is my normal range with CLL. He was surprised that my platelet count went up. He put me back on "Watch and Wait".
Now you may want to know if I had any Covid vaccines? No I haven't had any. I also was diagnosed with Agammaglobulinemia in 2015. Long word for I don't produce many antibodies. So the Covid and Flu shots are useless to me.
With all these negatives on Covid, I thought I'd share how it was a positive effect on me and my life.:)
Click to expand...
I have a Trooper friend, good friend, that has had CLL for over 30 years, if that helps raise your confidence level. She does real well with doing whatever she wants to do. In the summer, her and her husband and my wife and I play tennis together. She does get tired after about an hour, so we make it a one hour play date. I got her interested into becoming a Trooper and she thanks me each time we meet.

I always wished we had more female Troopers. We tried recruiting, but there was very little interest. I did get maybe 3 or 4 from high schools I visited and attempted to recruit.

But what was strange about the illness was that a man we both went to school with lived across the street from the park where we played. He had leukemia, only the real deal, and died less than a year after he told us. I was sickened by that news because you couldn’t find a nicer or better person than him. I was one of his pallbearers. I was kind of surprised to be asked, but his mother told me he always respected you and the job you did.
 


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