Day 13: Stop fighting, already!!

I’ve been trying to write for days, but every time I get a few minutes, I either get a call… a doctor or nurse walks in… or I am given Benadryl before a transfusion which knocks me out for 4-5 hours or more… or I just plain don’t feel well. How’s a girl supposed to get any work done in this place, anyway!? So I’ll try to catch up over the next day or two.

Day 12 (Sunday) ended on an upswing. While my counts were still dropping and I still had pain in my stomach, I was in a much better frame of mind. Since I spent the bulk of the weekend sleeping, I stayed up late catching up on emails and doing some work. Finally fell asleep around 1am, only to wake up an hour later with uncontrollable chills. And of course, had the bad nurse again. It was a rough night, for sure.

Was still feeling pretty awful the next morning, waking up when the nurses came in to give report. One of the things that they do here is to give report at shift change in the patient’s room, so that the patient hears everything and can ask questions or add anything missed. In this case, my nurse (yeah… *that* one, said to my day shift nurse that a small obstruction was found on one of my kidneys during the X-ray on Friday. Really!?!?!? This was news to ME!! My oncologists told me the day before that nothing was found. Hmm… I tucked that away to ask them during rounds. [Side note: asked during rounds about this. My not-so-with-it nurse was wrong. I have no kidney obstruction. Which would not have shown up on that X-ray of the stomach anyway!]

My blood counts were lower, WBC at .4, Hemoglobin at 7.9, Platelets at 11. Which was concerning, because I had just received a transfusion of platelets and blood the day before, and there was no change in my levels. In fact, they dropped. One of the doctors on my oncology team came in around 8am to check on me and to let me know that the primary focus now was to find out why my body was not responding to the blood and platelet transfusions. They suspected that my body was developing antibodies and attacking the donor blood products. So all transfusions were held until the cause was discovered, and a number of different blood cultured from multiple sites were taken (can we say human pin cushion??). I was also started on a broad covering antibiotic to treat whatever infection my body appeared to be fighting which was causing the chills and fever.

The doctors made rounds, and the preliminary results of the culture were back. Yup, I had developed antibodies. This means that my body was recognizing that the donor blood products were not my own, and developed these antibodies to fight the platelets and blood. UGH! Have you ever wanted to turn off your body’s fighting instinct, or at least take it down a notch!?!? I felt like reaching in there and saying, “Hey dumbass… this is the good stuff, chillax!!!” But no. My fighting instinct is stronger than I thought. Have I mentioned before that I always have to be unique…? Apparently, I don’t like the easy road to anything. In fact, I wear a necklace with a sailor’s compass on one side, and engraved on the back is the quote: “There are no shortcuts to any place worth traveling”.

Okay, so body not accepting donated blood and platelets. I asked the doctors what the next step was. Apparently what they do is cross match the donor platelets/blood with my own first, then transfuse. Translation: they take my blood, mix it with the donor’s in a petri dish, let it mingle and get all happy and see if there is an adverse reaction. If there is no reaction, they add the mixed product back to the bag and transfuse.

So that will be the plan of action for tomorrow. For now, bedtime for Tammy.

But not before I leave you with what’s playing on my iPod today… and in my heart:

You’ve Got a Friend, James Taylor