Terry Garten

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Terry's diagnosis comes as such a shock to many of us, because Terry has been a pretty healthy person overall.  He has not been overly sick etc.  So how was he diagnosed?

In the middle of December, Terry's daughter, Natalie, asked him to go donate blood at the Red Cross with her.  So on his day off they made an appointment and went.  Terry was told that he could not donate because his hemoglobin was too low(10g/dl).  The next day, Terry went to see his doctor and had blood drawn to check his hemoglobin.  All his blood counts were low(white count 1.3, Hemoglobin 11.1, platelets 64,000).  The doctor said that that he may be Vitamin B12 deficient and had him make an appointment with the Hematologist(in 3 weeks).  He had Terry come back a few days later for a re-check.  His counts were about the same, but it was decided that Terry would have a bone marrow biopsy done before seeing the Hematologist so the results would be ready.  Terry had his bone marrow biopsy on December 29th.  Terry got a call early Monday, January 2nd to come and see his doctor right away and then was admitted right into the hospital with a diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

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