Day 9

Yesterday's blood transfusion went without a hitch. It took about 5 hours and Dad slept pretty much through the whole thing. He walked another 1/4 mile in the evening, hanging on to some wheel chair handles for support and me, dragging the iv pole along behind. He ate a small amount of turkey and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Yesterday, this sign was posted outside our room door. It means that you are at added risk of falling. They should have put it up about 3 days ago, but didn't. When I asked the nurse about it, she told me that nothing else was off today...just that it should have been up before...and then she said, actually, it should be because he's a star patient. We'll take that approach!

Today's blood work showed that Dad needed platelets and potassium. So we're waiting for the platelets to arrive. They are "concentrating" them to try to avoid any reaction (along with Dad taking the obligatory tylenol and benadryl before hand, too). The potassium drip takes 4 hours...so there goes the day again.

Good news, Dad woke up this morning and the first thing he said was that he was feeling better. He felt like the "white army" was at work. Sure enough, when we went down to the treatment center and got his blood work, his white blood cells showed the first signs of increasing. They went from a .1 to a .2. It's a step in the right direction!

Dad ate a good breakfast, eggs, oven browned potatoes, OJ, grapefruit juice, coffee. Again, the doctors were impressed with that, as that is apparently uncommon for most at this stage. Dad got the approval to get his saline iv removed...so at this point, his dancing partner is gone. And he got the go ahead to go outside for some fresh air. Unfortunately, when we did get outside, it was a bit too windy and chilly, so we're waiting for a bit of sunshine. At least the "umbilical cord" to the iv pole has been cut. I'll post later to let you know how the platelets went...hopefully it will be good.