Need your prayers!!

Well, it’s been a hell of a week. I’m in the hospital, trying to get my platelets up above an 8. Normal is 150-400. On Thursday morning I knew there was something wrong when I wasn’t able to get my nose to stop bleeding. So I headed over to the cancer center to have my blood drawn and about 2 hours later got a call that my platelets were critical low, only 15. I was also anemic and neutropenic (no white cells). So I needed a transfusion of platelets and packed red blood cells. We talked about doing the transfusion on Thursday night, but the only way to do it would have been to be admitted to the medical floor, and I wasn’t too keen on that, so I promised I would stay home, be careful and do my transfusion first thing on Friday morning.

In retrospect, that wasn’t the wisest decision. My nose started bleeding again Thursday night about 10pm and bleed for the next 10 hours. It was a very very long night. The blood just would not coagulate. So on Friday morning I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. But I dragged myself up, stuffed my nose with tissue, armed myself with a box of Kleenex and headed over to the hospital. After two bags of platelets, the nose bleeding minimized and almost completely stopped. I thought I was in the clear.

Then the fever started. My fever started creeping up and by the time I left the hospital my temperature was 100.3. At 100.5 I have to call the doctor. So I went home and was feeling really crummy and went to bed. I woke up about an hour later and checked my temp, up to 101.8. So definitely going the wrong direction. I called the cancer center. They wanted me to go get a chest x-ray, blood and urine tests to see if I had a neutropenic infection. (blood infection). The chest and urine came out fine, so they sent me home and let me know that they would contact me on the blood cultures, which take 24-48 hours. So I went home and slept and slept. My fever finally broke about 3am and by the time I woke up at 7am I was weak and tired, but feeling much better. Then my nose started bleeding again. And it bleed and bleed and bleed. No matter what I did I couldn’t get it to stop. So by noon I called the doctor and asked him what to do. He said, “head to the emergency room”, so I did. At the ED they ran blood test and found that instead of my platelets going up, they have gone down, and now are at 8. My hemoglobin has also gone down from 9.1 to 8.9, so not a lot, but they are headed the wrong direction! So, unfortunately they admitted me to the hospital until I can 1) get my nose to stop bleeding and 2) get my platelets headed in the right direction – UP. I am in for at least 24 hours, maybe longer.

At least I was admitted to the surgical floor, 4th floor, which is a really nice private room. My nurses are so nice, in fact everyone has been super nice, caring and helpful. I know they only want me to be safe and healthy; I just hate being here at the hospital. They have these things on my legs to keep my circulation going so I can’t get up and around without the nurses help, which stinks, really takes away my independence.

So, my faithful prayer warriors, I am asking for your prayers. Pray that my platelets come up and that I get to go home tomorrow. I want to go home. I don’t like being here in the hospital. I want to get healthy and start my recovery.