The Almost Blood Transfusion

The week after chemo is always harder than the week of chemo as far as how Brynlee feels. She has been fussier and whiny again this week, BUT she is still doing great considering. We even got her outside a few times this week, but we have to be extremely careful as her skin is extra sensitive to the sun. 

 

Her counts did drop again (as expected). On Thursday, her labs showed that her WBC was 0.8, ANC was 0.2, Hematocrit was 24, and Platelets were 42. Apparently, 24 for hematocrit still is optional for a blood transfusion (even though when I looked through my notes from the first time we always transfused at 24) but down to 22 or 23 and then you have to have one. I decided to go ahead and get the blood transfusion on Friday because I knew that the next week would be really difficult for us to try and get a blood transfusion since we have appointments this next week that I do not want to cancel and we also have scans. I didn't want to risk her hematocrit dropping further and then being in a situation where the blood transfusion was an absolute necessity during a week when we just don't have time for one.

 

So we headed to the PCMC on Friday morning and had her blood drawn for the type and cross and then began the long wait for the blood. After about 2-1/2 hours the nurse informed me that Brynlee's blood was developing antibodies against the donor's blood, so they were doing more testing and it was going to be a little bit longer before the blood would be ready. At about 4 hours it was decided that they needed to do even further testing on the blood, which would require an additional 2-4 hours, so they were going to send us home rather than wait any longer. We were going to be admitted on Saturday for a "short stay" to get her blood transfusion. They drew additional blood before we left, and then we were on our way. So basically we spent 4 hours in clinic and got no blood.

 

After we had returned home, the clinic called and gave us the option to not do the blood transfusion since Brynlee wasn't really having any major low hematocrit problems (sleepiness, breathing problems, headaches). We initially decided that we were going to keep the transfusion scheduled, but then we called back and were reassured that the doctor felt that Brynlee would probably be okay without the transfusion and that her counts would probably start to rebound within the next few days. So then we cancelled the transfusion and decided to spend our Saturday not at the PCMC.

 

Hopefully, Brynlee's counts are now on the rebound and haven't dropped further, and hopefully she won't require that blood transfusion this week.

 

 Brynlee still has some patches of hair left on her head. This is one of the reasons you shave. It just does not fall out evenly!