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"No backup needed"

“No backup needed.”

What does that mean?

You’ll have to wait until the end to get that punch line.

Anyhow, Wednesday provided yet another in the long, winding road of events I’ve encountered since being diagnosed with cancer back in December 2007.

The big event? A bone marrow biopsy!

Here’s the deal: virtually all of the important medical numbers associated with my health have been good to way above average. The numbers say my nutrition levels are fine, major organ functions are fine and so is just about everything else. And, as previously reported, we’ve knocked the size of the tumor on my liver from 4.1 centimeters in width to about 1.5 centimeters.

Great numbers. Except for the platetlet count. And the aching bruised ribs and hip contusion I suffered in a super-klutzy fall last Friday in my garage (you should see the bruises).

Anyhow, in your brief med school briefing for the week—thank you, Wikepedia—platelets, or thrombocytes, are small, irregularly shaped anuclear cells. The average lifespan of a platelet is between 8 and 12 days.

Platelets play a fundamental role in hemostasis and are a natural source of growth factors. They circulate in the blood of mammals and are involved in hemostasis, leading to the formation of blood clots.

If the number of platelets is too low, excessive bleeding can occur. That has been my recent malady, keeping my platelet count at a level high enough for Dr. Green to allow me to have chemotherapy. A normal platelet count in a healthy individual is between 150,000 and 450,000. My number has dipped to 23,000. I can’t get chemo unless that number climbs back over 75,000.

So, the bone marrow biopsy became necessary to help my doctor figure out what in the name of God’s green acre is going on.

I don’t have those results yet, but I have a great anecdote from the day’s events to share.

My mother and my aunt Lois made a road trip from Dubuque to Janesville on Wednesday to be with me during the procedure and make sure somebody could drive a loopy sports writer home from the hospital.

Instead of doing the sane thing—like driving to Janesville on Tuesday night and using my extra bedroom space—my mother and Lois decided to leave Iowa at 4 a.m. for their Wednesday road trip.

While leaving Dubuque, my mother thought she spotted one of my first cousins and her husband out for their morning walk. Mom slowed her Impala to a near crawl, realized it wasn’t a relative, and continued on with her road trip.

A few blocks later, a Dubuque police officer lit up his cherries and pulled my mother over. She hadn’t done a thing, but fears of losing her perfect driving record left her nervous.

The officer meandered up to the car and shined his flashlight inside.

Realizing the passengers were two female senior citizens and not a pair of drunks ending a wild night of carousing, the officer clicked his microphone to report back to the office.

His official dispatch?

“No backup needed.”

Everybody keep fighting.

We’ll see you real soon.