An Overnight Stay at the Hospital

Two times a week Mommy goes to a local Hematology/Oncology office where her chest port is accessed and her blood is drawn. The blood work is done almost immediately and is faxed to her doctor's office in Philly. Having the blood drawn regularly helps to monitor how her blood cells are doing and alerts us to know if her immune system is down (white blood cells are down, platelets are down...).

This past Friday we went in for her 2:20 pm appointment and planned to run a couple of errands after she was all done. Her blood was drawn and the test results came back. Her white blood count, platelets and hemoglobin were critically low. We were going to the hospital. The office staff coordinated with her doctor in Philly and worked on arranging for her admission to the local hospital for transfusions.

Since she just completed her chemotherapy on Saturday the 24th, having to get transfusions is a pretty "standard" thing. The chemo wipes out the blood cells and we wait for the counts to go back up. When the counts get too low, transfusions are needed. Since it was a Friday around 3 pm, it was the weekend and it meant the transfusions would have to be done overnight in the hospital.

Mommy and I went home and added a few things to her pre-made hospital bags. We gathered up her meds, had some dinner, met up with Daddy and made our way over to the St. Mary hospital emergency department for admission.

She needed to get transfused with 2 units of blood and 1 unit of platelets. Unfortunately, the blood bank at the hospital didn't have what she needed on stock. They had to get it from the local Red Cross. It took quite some time for it to finally come. At 3 AM the transfusions began. The last unit of blood was hooked up to my mom Saturday morning. By 1 pm Saturday afternoon we were back home. The transfusions went without any complications and the results when she was discharged showed that her hemoglobin levels were back up as were her platelets. Mommy's nurse at discharge time told her, "Well, you just had a nice overnight hotel stay at the hospital." hahah :)

Mommy must have had a dozen different transfusions since March. Thankful for the Red Cross and all those blood donors. Amazing to think about blood donation as such a life-saving gift!!!

Thankful too for the staff at the Hematology/Oncology office. Each time we come in the staff are so friendly, offering their visitors genuinely caring smiles and hugs! They took care of all the details of connecting with her doctor in Philly and for getting Mommy admitted to the hospital.

We went back today for the first of this week's blood tests.
Hmmm... platelets and hemoglobin dropped from her results on Saturday afternoon. They're not below the "okay" level so no transfusions are needed at this point.

Please pray that the neupogin Mommy's taking would prove effective in upcoming blood tests -- as well as in her energy level and overall health.
Please also continue to pray that the leukemia cells wouldn't come back. Pray that she would continue to be clean of cancer.