Friday blood work

Dad had his weekly blood work drawn today and everything was below normal, which isn't unusual at this point...the first week after chemo. The white blood cells are down because the neulasta shot hasn't quite kicked in. It seems to be kicking in today as Dad can feel it in his bones...it's not comfortable, but at least he knows it's starting to do its thing.

The one thing that is really low is Dad's platelets...those cells that help with blood clotting or in other words...they keep a person from bleeding. The normal range is 150-450 and Dad's today was 15. The doctor said that if he goes below a 10, he will have to have a platelet transfusion. So Dad has to go to the hospital tomorrow mid-morning to get more blood work to check on things. If his platelets stay the same, he goes back to the hospital on Sunday for more blood work. If the platelets increase, he doesn't need to go to the hospital on Sunday for blood work, but he needs to go to his doctor's office on Monday for blood work. And worse case is if tomorrow his platelets drop to below 10, then he will have to have the transfusion right away. It doesn't take that long, but it's a bit trickier than a regular transfusion. The platelets are stored in a frozen state and they have to be thawed out and immediately transfused into the body.

The interesting thing is that Dad has been feeling better each day. He went back to work on Monday and has worked a full day every day this week. He's eating well. He's been taking walks at noon outside. He's been going on evening walks when possible. So it's odd that his blood is showing up with this...you'd think he'd be really tired, but then he is an anomaly...or as Sara says...a freak of nature.

I will post tomorrow as to what happens after the blood work results are back. We go into the infusion lab at the hospital for the blood work at 10:30 tomorrow morning so it will be early afternoon by the time that I post...at the earliest.