Tam’s Think Tank

Oh my! This whole process has been fraught with adventure. As one might expect. Today… no exception.

I woke up thinking… yay, no push. My 8 day cycle is over for now, and it’s all just a two or three week waiting period to see how the counts go and then move to the next step. I also woke up today feeling better than yesterday, which is great. It’s all a matter of degrees for me right now. I feel better than I did yesterday, or not. Today I woke up feeling better than yesterday. It’s good.

I had a chat with the doc… had my protocol adjusted a bit based on that and her consult with another Onocology doc from OHSU. New-ist thinking is that it’s good to give platelets to anyone whose numbers are under 30,000. Mine have been between 700 and 17,000. So the decision was made to give me platelets today.

Which brings me back to the adventure for today. The plan had been for mom to cut my hair today (going to about 2 inches all over to have it more manageable in here and also to be closer to the bald level I may have in a week or so… ), Karen, Mom and I were going to have a little walk, I was going to take a shower… all of that. A simple but nice and mellow day.

Then the platelets started going in. I’ve had three transfusions before this, and as they go platelets are the most benign.

… I just wrote a whole huge post here, which I lost because I got booted off the hospital internet. Blurgh!!

To not have to re-write it all I will just say this… I was just minding my own business getting some platelets when the itch began. It can be a possible side effect of getting blood products. I’d not had an adverse reaction until this point. I looked at Karen and Mom and was like… I’m itchy. They were like… press your button now.

Whirlwind… nurses in, platelets stopped, benadryl directly injected into my picc line… then steroids directly injected into my picc line, then nurses bagging up the left over platelets (never thought I’d have my platelets bagged… LOL) and taking blood from me so they could re-type and cross me with the platelets and also they were going to check the platelets. One of the nurses made a joke about how someone shouldn’t probably mow the lawn before they donate… I laughed. It was a good joke. Oh, and by the way… a direct push of benadryl can cause major lightheadedness for a time. Let me tell you.

So my little uneventful day turned and I had a mini adventure. It’s 9:00 now and I am ready for the itching to completely stop. It hasn’t yet. I still itch around the picc line and occasionally on other spots on my body. Hopefully by the morning it will be gone. My guess is I will be getting more platelets tomorrow. Let’s just hope for a shut in who doesn’t mow.