May 29, 2009 Platelet Shortage

The last couple of days have been pretty anticlimactic after the two days of harvesting, but that doesn’t mean that we have been without some level of excitement. Due to the fact that the harvesting process not only took stem cells out of my system, but also robbed me of most of my platelets, I have continued to bleed from the site of my port.

Since the installation on Tuesday I have had two dressings applied on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, two on Thursday and one on Friday. These are supposed to last 48 hours. Thursday was the most involved, however, as I was at Jason’s baseball game when I noticed that blood was dripping down my chest.. The gauze had reached its saturation limit and started to trickle blood down the outside of the two tubes.

It wasn’t so bad that we needed to dial 911, but it was enough to make another trip up to the Mayo. We found a ride home for Jason and made the trip to Scottsdale. We had been told earlier in the day that the Infusion department was manned until 9 PM so we felt we had enough time to get up there and get it done. To our chagrin, when we arrived at 8 PM it was abandoned. I knew what this meant—a dreaded trip to the emergency room (the home of lost souls).

One of the good things about the Mayo ER is that it isn’t anything like the TV series. The bad thing is it isn’t anything like the TV series. There were very few people waiting, which was a good thing. The bad thing is that because demand is relatively light there is only one doctor available, not that I needed one. After waiting for 45 minutes, we were escorted back into the treatment room area where we were given our own room. There we waited for another 20 minutes. Finally, a nurse entered and had me redressed in 10 minutes. This is where it got ridiculous.

I then had to wait another 30 minutes for a doctor to come in and have me tell him why I was there and that he didn’t need to worry about why I was bleeding. He then had to write discharge papers which took another 15 minutes. Eventually the nurse joined us and told me not to lift any pianos. Two hours to have a bandage removed, my skin and wound cleaned and a new bandage put on. If only my girl friend Chan had been up in the infusion room.

Julia and I finally got home at 11 PM.

The dressing I received today at 2:30 was already soaked with blood at 6 PM. Now I need to decide if I should just let it go and hope it clots or go in tomorrow at 7 AM so I don’t miss Justin’s graduation. This is the only reason that they have not started the actual transplant. I think I’ll hold off. Can’t miss Justin’s big day.