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August 25, 2006, Day 15
Friends,
My heart rate monitor was reading 120 BPM. 67% of max heart rate. Must be on a nice level spot moving right along with a paceline. Oops, no that was just me lying in bed with a 103 degrees farenheit fever. Not such a big problem really except for the chills and the shakes, and operating pretty much on brain stem. Well, the other problem was that I needed a platelet transfusion and they really don't like giving platelets with high fevers. So they gave me two tylenol, ripped all my blankets off me, packed ice in my armpits and groin, and waited for my
temperature to drop. Faced with that onslaught, the fever gave up. I feel much better now.
That was actually this afternoon starting about 3pm. The rest of the day was pretty quiet. No real fevers, no problems. The afternoon fever happened during a transfusion, so there was a great deal of testing going on to see if there was a problem with the blood I was getting.
A lot of great medical technology advances were made today too. Menchie and I had been fanning me when I broke out in sweats with one of the wonderful cards we have received. I am not sure whose it was, but it was sure a lifesaver. But we traded that in for a battery operated fan that can be hung from the neck and blows up at the face. Wow! It worked like a champ. The other thing was they found a blood pressure cuff big enough for my massive cyclist thighs (HA), they are taking blood pressure on my thigh by my knee because neither arm can be used.
As I mentioned yesterday, my hair is starting to fall out. I had forgotton how painful that process is. The whole scalp is covered with a sharp burning senstion if anything touches it, including a pillow. I have not been able to get my haircut yet. Still working on that. No walk today either.
On the medical front - nothing new to report. They are trying to figure out a group of drugs that they can use during the stem cell transplant that will not effect me with massive whole body rashes. The staff is also coordinating with my brother to come and donate cells for me. The 0.3 for my WBC count is probably noise, unless it continues to climb over several days. I suspect, however that it will go back down to 0.2 tomorrow. We shall see!!
Lab Results |
Blood Cell Type |
Normal Low |
8/21 |
8/22 |
8/24 |
8/25 |
| WBC |
4.5 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
0.3 |
| RBC |
4.3 |
2.40 |
2.37 |
2.52 |
2.09 |
| HGB |
13.9 |
8.5 |
7.4 |
8.5 |
6.9 |
| PLT |
130 |
20 |
11 |
21 |
15 |
Hope you all have a great weekend!
Menchie and Ted
tw@wilcoxent.com
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