Data Crunching

My hospital's online chart system finally added my test results from when I was in the hospital.  This completed my data set for my tests so, of course, I had to do some data analysis.  It looks like this--

• 2008    1
• 2009    1
• 2010    8
• 2011    4
• 2012    26
• 2013    491
• 2014    63
• 2015    48

So, not too much until 2012 when I knew something was wrong starting in October; diagnosed and treated in 2013 ; and working on my recovery in 2014 and 2015.  Nice to see the numbers trending down.  Here's a graph showing the number of tests by month.

Here's a word cloud I did of the providers who ordered the tests. You see #1 is Yvonne Efebera, MD  with 99 tests, #2 is Tammy Lamb  at 89 and #3 is Rebecca Scott (the nurse practitioner on the bone marrow transplant unit)  with 80.  I've had tests ordered by 35 different providers.  The father of  a girl who played field hockey with Claire, Rob Baiocchi, MD is a hematologist at Ohio State.  He mentioned at one of the games that I looked familiar and asked if he'd taken care of me.  I told him that the time I was in the hospital was such a morphine induced blur and perhaps he did, but I didn't remember it. Sure enough, when I looked at the tests from when I was an inpatient, I saw that he ordered my red blood cell transfusion.  Quite a small world. 

I also did a word cloud of the tests that were ordered.  You see the focus on the blood tests to see how my blood health was doing in the onslaught of chemo.  CBC to check the components, hepatic function panel to check liver function (the amyloids went after my liver and chemo is metabolized by the liver--double whammy), interesting that the immunoglobulin free light chain test to measure the substances that create the amyloids is relatively small.  They say that it's important to protect organ function for amyloidosis patients so it's nice to see the word cloud confirm my physician's focus on that.  

I had a great appointment with Dr. Efebera this week.  I posted this on Facebook--

4 month check up and all the digits look good. Kappa light chains aka bad stuff is below normal at 2.79. It was 79 when diagnosed. Key liver test that was 500 right after my transplant is now 57.

I sent this email to Dr. Efebera tonight at 5:06--

Alan was asking me about our appointment and asked what we discussed about my liver.  I said we barely even talked about and breezed over the lab results.  I said, "She didn't even palpate it.  My liver is like the best gift I bring Yvonne and she didn't even take the time to enjoy it."  Glad you enjoyed the kidney results, though.  :)

Merry Christmas, from all my organs.

 She replied at 5:08--

I know!!!!.   Your abdomen is so flat (flatter than mine) that your liver said “ no need to palpate me today, you can already see me” 

And then added at 5:09--

and I love those kidneys of yours.

 I love my kidneys, too.  It's been a good week and I'm so grateful for how well I'm doing, what a great care team I have and how bright the future looks for Amyloidosis patients.  2015 has been a pretty good year!