Tired today. Got a call to say Adam's HB and platelets had dropped and he needed transfusions of both. But you can't just go straight up to the hospital, you have to wait for them, sometimes for many hours. I was at work, all the kids were at home, Jake had football 5.30-7.30. And bearing in mind that we'd be in hospital for 4 or 5 hours we wanted to get going as soon as the call came which meant our evening meal plans went out the window. It's 8pm as I write and I've been here for nearly 3 hours now, Adam has been hooked up for 2 of them. Not heard whether his platelets are ready but I'm not hanging around once the blood is finished if they are not. It'll already be quite late. Just have to do it tomorrow when we come up for GCSF.
Now work this out. Last week his platelets were 13 and they didn't transfuse. Today they had dropped from 21 to 18 and they decided to. When you find yourself in the position we do you have to learn from other people's mistakes and make sure that when they are about to be repeated you step in. I don't mind about him having platelets today. It's the previous time when he didn't that I'm still miffed about. Ask any oncology parent and you'll find similar stories. You have to take control as you are the one constant that sees all of the treatments, the hospital stays and of course how Adam is at home. We do things now that we could never have envisaged back when Adam first started treatment. Sometimes you just have to tell the medical professionals how it is.... politely of course.
When we came in Adam was in good spirits. We played with Jake's old Yu-Gi-Oh cards for a while and he was all happy and smiling. But since his blood went up he's been a bit low; just laying on the bed, watching TV and being rather grumpy. Could be he's tired because of low HB. Or it could be that his body will take a little while to adjust to the blood. Because, despite what Adam thinks, it's not his and sometimes he reacts in this way. And he also keeps playing with his 'lines' - something he always does when he has low platelets.
Adam decided he wanted his Mum to stay with him for a little bit and then take him home so we did a quick shift change. Around 22:30 the doorbell rang and they were home. The nurses had tricked us a little bit. Although they'd got two bags of blood for Adam he only need about a quarter of the second bag. And platelets only take around 20 minutes. So now he's all transfused up. Hopefully for the last time until after the next cycle of chemo.
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