Just When You Think You're Out .....They Pull You Back In!!

So this morning we went to the Arlington Cancer Center to see the Oncologist and he said as expected after a round of chemo, her blood counts were all way down. Platelets, Hemoglobin and White Cells all VERY low and he said Sheila would need to go to the hospital for 2 units of whole blood and 1 unit of platelets. That was round 3 of chemo and even though she was taken off of a week and a day ago, the counts will continue to drop for about a week. The danger is with counts that low, bleeding or an infection is a serious concern. Before we went in to see the oncologist she always has to go to the infusion center and have blood drawn and the resulting report has to go to the doctor before she goes in to see him. So now he sends us BACK to the infusion center for more blood work so they can "type and cross check" her before they can give her the blood and platelets at the hospital. We get to the infusion center and they have no one qualified to take her blood from her CVC port. They call the doctor's office and then decide to send us to the lab for the "type and cross". The lab draws the blood and gives it to us to take to the hospital for the hospital to run the "type and cross". We get to the hospital room where they give blood and platelets and they tell us we have to go to admissions first (we have never had to do this before I tell them). A tech takes us (Sheila in a wheel chair ) to admissions and on the way through the lobby an elderly lady with a walker has fallen down and a crowd of nurses, doctors and what I could only describe as admin/legal types from the hospital and all hovering over her! We get through admissions and they take us up to the 3rd floor (where Sheila spent a month in the hospital) to have the blood and platelets administered. So when we get to the room the blood work finally goes to the hospital's lab and so we sit......for three hours! After 3 hours they hook her up for the platelets (which require no "type and cross") Now it is 6:30PM and the platelets have run and still NO word from the lab or when she will get the whole blood! This little adventure started at 10:30AM .......and here we still sit!

Update: 8:45PM They finally started the whole blood and unit number 2 is now half empty.......maybe we will get outta here before 10PM!?

Cover Pic today is my daughter Ashley paddling through Red Belly at Caddo Lake.