I Made Platelets!

Day +36 (Day 174)

Dixie has come to save the day! I'm out of commission and she's here to help with the move tomorrow. Thankfully.

Today, we anticipated that I'd be getting blood products since I've been so short of breath over the last two days. When we got the report of my blood work, we were pleasantly surprised to see that my platelets had jumped from 20,000 on Tuesday to 33,000 today. I made my own platelets!

My hemoglobin was another story. I was at a 9.0 on Tuesday and a 8.2 today. My doctor likes to wait until I'm at 8.0 or below before I get red blood cells. Since I'm off for the next two days, I normally would have gotten a few units to keep me going until Monday. MDAnderson is experiencing a blood shortage, so my team decided to hold off. No blood for me. If I start experiencing side effects from low hemoglobin, I'm supposed to go to the emergency room. Chris is watching me like a hawk.

I got a good report, otherwise. I'm swimming through it just fine. We're just waiting for the GVHD to take effect. We met two other patients who had had cord blood transplants today. One patient had a very new procedure where he received a mini transplant from a matched sibling, then a mini transplant from cord blood. He had experienced quite a bit of GVHD, mostly concentrating on his skin. The other patient that we met lived in the same city where I went to highschool. He was having a rougher time of it, but he is also over 50. It was just nice to finally meet some other patients who had similar transplants and compare stories. We also ran into some friends from the transplant floor today. It was quite a social day. :)

Tomorrow is the big move. Chris hired a company to come clean out the air ducts, so I can't go over until after 3pm. I get so out of breath just walking to the bathroom, that I wouldn't have been much use during the move. I've pre-packed clothes to help. I'll just sit and be cute while they do the heavy lifting. I'm exhausted, so I'll end it all here.