Fresh Blood and a Full Day

Quite a day... I woke up at 7:30 (an achievement like you wouldn't believe for me these days) to get ready to go to the clinic for 9:30am labs and a 10:30 spinal tap. It figured to be a short appointment and I anticipated being back at home by early afternoon.

Instead, after labs I waited in the waiting room for an hour talking with a woman I met, Shelly, who also has A.L.L and is scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant next week. She is a brave, optimisitic, and inspiring woman, and I ask you, my readers, to send her all the good vibes you've got next week.

After about an hour, a nurse came out and informed me that the appointment had been changed to 12:20pm, and that I must have lost my appointment card. Shoot. I asked her whether my lab results were back yet, and she went to check. She came back shortly there after and informed me that while I still have some white blood cells (low but still hangin' out), My red blood cells have fallen to 8.2 units, a rather anemic state that they usually transfuse for -- This explains why just getting out of bed has been a challenge the last couple of days.

So, I had to go back to waiting for labs to test my blood to cross with the blood bank. After waiting an hour, the nurse finally came back out and asked why I was there. "Waiting" I replied. Turned out, the lab never received the orders for the test and 15 minutes later I finally got in.

This all worked out all right, however, as in the interim waiting period I discovered that they had scheduled the wrong chemo for me for the following two weeks. It took a bit of coaxing, but once the research director looked into it, she finally admitted I'm supposed to have four spinal taps this round, not two. It always pays to be your own health advocate, although I never thought I'd push for more spinal taps.

Once in the chemo room, I was pre-medded with benedryl (to prevent a reaction with the blood) and tylenol (to prevent a fever). The Doctor was running late, so the spinal tap would have to wait. We started running the blood into me, and all seemed to be going well -- No immediate reaction. After about 15 minutes, I stood up to use the restroom, went to the restroom, was washing my hands, and experienced a strange pain in the middle of my chest. "Oh Shit."

I hurried down the corridor, found a nurse, and tried to calmly explain:

"I'm getting blood and have a strange pain in my chest."

"What?"

"I'M GETTING BLOOD AND HAVE A STRANGE PAIN IN MY CHEST!" I replied in a less than calm manner.

She and another nurse grabbed onto me threw me down in the bed in my chemo room, ripped the blood cord out of my arm spraying the bed, my arm and the wall with blood and called the doctor.

My poor mother who had just 10 seconds previously been quietly and peacefully listening to a phone message in the room alone looked completely wide-eyed.

The Doctor calmly took my vitals, concluded it was either anxiety or indigestion, gave me some lorazapam (chills you out) and some benedryl (chills you out), and hooked me back up to the blood. All is well, false alarm.

After this debauchel, we did the spinal tap which went with surprising ease. After monitoring me for another two hours to make sure my heart wouldn't explode, they finally let me go. My anticipated two hour appointment done after only nine hours... quite a day.

I am thoroughly enjoying my fresh supply of blood. It really gave me quite a boost. Please consider donating blood next time you have the opportunity. You may never know who receives it, but believe me, it will be appreciated.

My buddy Stuart who I've mentioned on this blog before is having a brain port put in his head today to deliver interthecal chemo drugs. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Till next time,

Sam