Yikes, everyone bases thier beliefs on their own experiences, right? And I have never had good luck with blasts -- I have none and then all of a sudden I have two (I never had just one), and then a few months later I have 16 or more. That is what happened to me, my first hemotologist wasn't concerned about the blasts. Or rather, HE DIDN"T PAY ATTENTION. I said, Do you even look at my labs? And he said, They are supposed to. They????????? Anyhow, Dee, I don't want to scare you, because they did tell me before transplant that anything under 4% blasts would be considered remission, and when I confronted my first doctor, he said having some blasts was normal. HOWEVER, when I went to Mayo, and was pretty sure my myelofibrosis had switched to leukemia while everyone was sleeping, I said to him, having myelofibrosis, shouldn't I have become a critical care patient the second blasts showed up in my blood, and he said YES. I can't remember, Dee, if you have MF or ET, but I do remember you were going to a PCP. For sure find a GOOD hemotologist, but, if it were me with MF and I had one blast, I would get affiliated with a transplant facility ASAP (use one of their docs if you have one near you), because they will watch you and jump on it before it makes a change to leukemia. Again, I don't know for sure the odds of ML jumping to leukemia, and since mine did, it makes me wish you would be very proactive on this. But, my first hemotolgist said he had patients who had had myelofibrosis for decades and not turned to leukemia...I hope you are in that group!
BTW, yesterday was my 6 month stem cell transplant anniversary. No sign of leukemia, and they say in a year or so I might see great improvement in the myelofibrosis. So, get a good doc and hope for the best!!
Kathy
