Creative chromosomes

 

Today, and I do literally mean today, my creative space has included an eclectic mix of stuff.

Some things in preparation of my hospital appointment tomorrow such as this coconut bread.  One for B, one for the staff on the day unit.  

A good few hours were spent browsing high risk myeloma on the internet. After further research, in the loosest sense of the word, it turns out that cytogenetics only show the chromosone 13 deletion, but alterations to other chromosomes needs FISH, an analysis method I ignored before my last but one pre-appointment last minute cramming and not but not as in the kind in a tank or the cod in batter that B suggested we have for tea earlier in the week and which, on further investigation before cooking fortunately, turned out to have passed its expiry date in November 2010.

Now if you come here for my craftiness you might want to pay close attention to the following because depending how it goes tomorrow there may be a test in the future! (Yes I know you thought I was going to say just skip along and pick up at the next photo but no I can be such a meany.)

So FISH (flourescence insitu hybridisation) shows t(14;4), t(14;16), and 17p13 (del[17p].  Got it so far?  Good.  There are also t(11;14) and t(6:14).

Now you don’t really want t(4;14), t(14;16) or del(17p) however if you do get them if you can also manage to have a low ß2-microglobulin this can mean a similar or only marginally worse outlook than usual.

‘Kay?  Right, what the heck are these t’s and numbers then, well –

Most of us have two copies of 22 chromosomes which themselves have a long and a short ‘arm’.

There are various positions on these arms which conveniently enough are numbered.  So del(17p) as it is commonly known is really 17p13.  17 is the chromosome number, p means the short arm and 13 is the position of the deleted bit.  The long arm is called q, in case you were wondering and not just for 17, every short arm is p and every long arm is q.

Chromosomes can also gain bits but I can’t seem to find any myeloma relevant additions so we will just skip that bit.

However stuff can also ‘t’ for translocate – t(4;14) meaning that parts of chromosones 4 and 14 had a little party or something and 4 went home with one of 14’s socks and 14 had 4’s purse.

Hello?  Still there?  Good, because now we have some good news in all this intermingling and deleting.  t(11;14) can mean nothing or even mean a little bit of a favourable outcome.

Right I think that’s enough for now since I haven’t fully understood hypodiploidy or how the plasma cell labelling index indexes itself in a way that’s different to plasma cell content in a bone marrow sample so let’s get crafty again.  Here’s a dress I started sewing together this evening…

Here’s the yarn I went out to purchase this afternoon (along with plain flour for my coconut bread as I missed it off the shopping list) because Shelly over at This Eclectic Life is doing the whole 150 afghans for kids with cancer again this year.  She is seriously crazy I mean all she gets from it is the satisfaction of knowing that she’s responsible for putting a smile of the face of a small child.  Geez some people!

Bud was very excited at the sight of the blue yarn when I got home however the little present I got him was this red Kong.  It wobbles like a weebble and you put treats inside and with enough encouragement they fly out.  Although he ignored it at first I am pleased to report that he played with it so much while I was sewing that he ended up panting. Although there were a few brief breaks when he came over to me to let me know that it was stuck behind something – the dress form, the laundry basket.

And just to thank you for making it through all the myeloma stuff to get to this point here’s a picture of Bud when I came out of the bathroom yesterday morning and walked back into the bedroom…

Other creative spaces are here.