Drip, drip, drip........ (PG)

PG rating only if you can't stand the site of blood even if it is in a bag.

By the time the blood was all sorted I started my transfusion at about 16:00. After having my cannula fitted on the day unit I was taken up to a bed on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

This is where I will be for a large part of my time when I have am stem cell transplant in a couple of months time. Each room is like a little hotel room with an en-suite toilet and shower, fridge, small TV and Hi-Fi and big HEPA air filtration unit. This is where I'll be spending a couple of weeks in semi-isolation whilst my new stem cells settle in. So it was nice to see what the setup is like.

Blood transfusions have to be done relatively slowly usually over two to three hours so the first bag wasn't finished until 19:00. Part way through the second bag when the nurses did my obs my temperature was up to 37.9. This can happen with a transfusion so they had to slow down the rate for the second bag and my temperature came back down.

As a result it didn't all finish until nearly 23:00 so when Dad collected me I spent the night at Mom and Dad's as I was quite tired.

This morning I feel much better and have a bit more energy , I'm not quite 100% (say 77%) but better than I was yesterday morning. I'm back at the clinic on Monday for blood tests and seeing my consultant on Tuesday.

Here's what a bag of blood looks like ( just in case you wondered ). I'm O Rh+ so common as muck :o)



My counts are still on the way down or only just bottoming out so as well as being anaemic I am neutropenic and slightly thrombocytopenic i.e. have a lower than usual platelet count. Platelets are involved in making blood clot.

My platelets aren't low enough to require a transfusion for them yet ( they are collected and given separately to the red cells that I had yesterday ).

I probably won't be ready for my next round of chemo ( a repeat of the first ) until after the Whitsun bank holiday as my counts need to increase and then maintain a good level before I can have treatment.

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