Thursday evening medical report

Well, there was some good news and some not so good news. The good news is that some of my blood counts were slightly up. Of course I got platelets on Monday, but they were high enough that I didn't get those today. And it was a good thing. There pretty much were NO platelets here today. All kinds of people were having to be cancelled. If you can give platelets, I urge you to do so. It saves so many lives.

My white count was up! Only a little, but it was up. This is a good thing. I have gone from 0.0 to 0.1 to today's 0.4. This recovery in whites happened much more quickly from Dacogen than it did from Vidaza.

My reds were such that I needed to get two units of red cells. That was exepected.

My port site is looking better, but not nearly healed. They wanted to give me the Vancomycin directly in the port. I was so nervous of that. I'd already been stuck to get blood, had a pic line in my arm for getting the red cells, and then they wanted to stick the port. They gave me plenty of time to get into a meditative state. The nurse had put on lidocaine about an hour before stick time. Lots of it under a patch. I took a Lortab about 45 minutes ahead. This should have been OK. It was not. It hurt so bad! I was not looking, of course, but apparently she got the needle in, but couldn't get it to flush. I am still getting nauseous just thinking about it. I wound up getting the Envanz and the Vancomycin through the pic line.

They want me to have Envanz and Vancomycin tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, so they have arranged for a Home Heath nurse to come administer it. That way I won't have to go to the hospital for the weekend. That nurse is supposed to look at the port site and if it seems viable try to give me the Vancomycin through it. I don't think that will happen tomorrow, but maybe Saturday or Sunday. Unless something great happens, it looks like I may have to have the port removed. The surgeon doesn't want to do another one. Removing the port will require me to get several units of platelets, then have the port taken out that same day. The very thought of all the sticks involved for three more months of treatment is more than I want to think about tonight.