Health update ~ Friday 8 May

Back to the doctor again early this morning. Yesterday I had an MRI and a CT scan. The CT scan of my hip and lower back was a piece of cake. Took maybe five minutes. The MRI machine was having problems and what should have been a 15-20 minute scan of my shoulder wound up having me in the machine for about an hour and fifteen minutes. The technician had told me not to move, so for the first hour I held as still as possible the entire time. Finally my arm was so numb with shooting pains in my elbow, that I wiggled my foot to get her attention. She took me out of the machine and let me move my arm some. THEN she told me that when the machine was not making noise I didn't have to be still. Sheesh! She could've told me that an hour earlier. Oh well. It all got done.

Both the CT scan and the MRI showed degenerative bone wear commensurate with my age. The shoulder has some extra damage to I think he said axial? Anyway when he pressed at a particular spot on the top of my shoulder it hurt. The CT scan also showed a bulging disc and some misalignment of the lower spine. Well I knew I had misalignment of the lower spine. That's why I wanted to go to the chiropractor!

Normal treatment for this is anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids. Because of my severe low platelet count, I cannot take those. Instead I will do some gentle yoga stretching and wait for it to get better. Also am to take Lortab or Tylenol as needed. The good news is that I have no abscess or hematoma so there's no internal bleeding. Yea!

My neutrophils are still on their upswing. They were 0.9 again today! My platelets were in the tank again (4000 taday) , so I got a transfusion of those this morning. No red blood today, though. That's scheduled for this coming Tuesday. My ferritin count has come down some, so the Exjade must be doing its job.

All in all it was not a bad day. After the medical stuff was done there was lunch with my Mom, my sister, DD#2, Abbey and Donnie. We were celebrating DD#2's birthday, which is tomorrow. I was so sleepy that I fell in the bed when we got home from that and didn't wake up again until around 11:00p. IV Benadryl really works!