Two alarms went off at 7:30am. I visited the AF Hospital for a CBC at 8am. The happy plan: The CBC proves that I'm trending towards more platelets and neuts, later in the evening I get admitted to LDS Hospital for the next round of chemo. The sad plan: The CBC shows that my blood chemistry isn't trending positively and I head to LDS Hospital at 11:30am for another bone marrow aspirate.
Well, the morning CBC went sideways. When a CBC is done through a central line the nurse will take a certain amount of blood and waste it. The purpose of this is to clear the line of blood that isn't representative of the patient's circulating blood. I'm assuming the blood in the line doesn't have the same chemistry as the circulating blood after a certain amount of time passes, I don't really know the biology here. Anyhow, if the nurse doesn't waste enough blood the CBC results will be inaccurate. I believe that is what happened this morning. The nurse was having a hard time with the line; she flushed it three times and ran heparin through before she could get it to draw. When she did draw she only pulled about 4ml.
The morning CBC came back showing platelets at 70 and my neuts at 900. The Wednesday counts were 72 and 1000, if I recall correctly. So we headed in for a bone marrow aspirate at 12:30, they shifted the appointment back an hour. When we arrived they pulled another CBC, that's routine for out patient clinic visits. 10 minutes later we talked to a physician who explained why we should do the aspirate instead of starting chemo and we were all set to do just that. But, in the 5 minutes between talking to the physician and the time appointed to perform the aspirate, I decided to pull out my phone and check the results of the CBC that was performed just 15 minutes earlier. Yeah, IHC has a very cool patient website where everything they do in relation to you is updated minute by minute as results are obtained. My platelets now showed 73 and my neuts showed 1.4. Neuts generally don't jump by 60% in two hours. Also, this put me well inside the parameters for continuing chemo.
I asked Emily to ask the nurse to ask the physician "What up, yo?". Instead, she asked the nurse what, if anything, this meant. After five minutes the same physician I spoke with earlier told me that my favorite physician, Dr. Ashe, told him to tell me that we should ditch the aspirate and admit me today. So much telling and asking in such a short amount of time. Topping it off, I told the physician "This has been pretty ridiculous.". He agreed.
The reason for the morning check was to allow me to spend my Friday at home. Instead it was spent here at the hospital and on the road. In my effort to save time and enjoy one more day at home I ended up spending extra time.
Emily and I left the hospital and had some Noodles & Co. for lunch before returning to be admitted. I bet you didn't see that coming.
The whole issue of moving forward with this round of chemo and the flip-flopping has been very strange and somewhat annoying. A good deal of bad communication, and a little bit of bad information, complicated everything. But, as the Bard said 400 years ago, and one nurse repeated today, all's well that ends well. Today has ended well enough for me.
Emily is both fantastic and extraordinary. Despite the odd path the day took we managed to have a good time throughout. It is my sincere desire that she may continue to make up for, and forgive me for, my shortcomings.
The picture of the day would be me playing gin rummy with Emily, but that's on her phone. Instead, I give you a shot of me and mine visiting the Ashby's some years ago. Yes, it is normal for Max to look like that.
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