He had to get poked and prodded and had lots of bruises everywhere and was Generally Unhappy.
His immune system beat his platelets to a pulp. His levels dropped as low as 1,000 per microliter (typical numbers, according to the National Institutes of Health, are 150,000-400,000/mcL). Slowly, they climbed.
Just a wee bit at first, mind you. All the way to 2,000/mcL. And that was probably still within the margin of error for the test. So quite possibly, it didn't rise at all.
But then a little more. 4,000/mcL this time. Then 8,000/mcL.
And then...26,000/mcL. This was a magic number.
This meant that our boy could go home. Anything over 20,000 meant that the risk for spontaneous bleeding was reduced to the point where it was safe to keep him at home.
So when we brought Bruiser home, we recorded the reunion with his little brother. It went a-something a-like a-this.
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