There’s not much to report on Tuesday the 20th, nor Wednesday the 21st. Shannon was at home and feeling weak and tired. On Wednesday she also noticed bruising starting to appear on her legs and arms. She had petechiae(tiny round red spots due to bleeding under the skin) on her legs too and even a small area on her knee that was bleeding through her skin. We called the “On Call” doctor and they said we could go to the ER or wait until our appointment at the clinic in the morning. We decided that it wasn’t too bad and we could wait until the morning. We knew her platelets were low and that she would probably need a blood transfusion and platelets as well.
Thursday the 22nd, we went to the clinic at 9am. They took her blood sample on the 5th floor lab, then we went to the 6th floor for her doctor appointment. They confirmed that her platelets were only 8(8,000) and anything less than 10(10,000) they give a platelet transfusion. The normal platelet count is between 150,000-450,000. Her hemoglobin was also low at 6.6 and anything less than 7 they transfuse. So, they ordered 1 unit of whole blood for her and 2 units of platelets. She brought her pillow and blanket because we knew it would be a long day. We went back down to the 5th floor Infusion Suite waiting room and waited for a good 2 hours to be called back. The long wait was due to them waiting on her blood products to arrive from the main St. Lukes Medical Center campus (only about 1 mile away).
They finally called her name and set us up in an infusion suite room. It was pretty big back there, looked like they have 20 to 25 private infusions rooms. Some patients were getting blood products like Shannon but some were getting outpatient chemotherapy. Shannon’s room had a recliner for her, a chair for me, and a TV on the wall. They premedicated Shannon with Tylenol and Benadryl, standard premeds, then started with the whole blood first. Shannon dozed off within the first hour or so due to the Benadryl. After a couple of hours the whole blood finished and then they ran the two units of platelets back to back. She tolerated everything well, no side effects from the blood products. We were there until about 5pm at the clinic before finally heading home(8 hour day).
