Information, Please, Almanac!

 Kind of a different day today. My morning blood draw happened a bit later than usual. The night nurse told me they had had a very busy night. In the midst of it all, the mandatory, every 72 hours Blood Type and Cross Match sample was not drawn. Consequently, even though the other labs showed that my hemoglobin was low, no blood could be ordered until the Type and Cross Match was done. That, of course, required more lab time, and the end result was that my transfusion didn't get started until a little after 11:00 AM, whereas it usually is underway by about 6:30 AM. 

In the meantime, although Jill and I wanted to go out for a walk, we dared not, lest we be gone when the blood arrived. So, instead we chatted with each other and Dr. Krishnan, the hematologist and Kari, NP. They are still saying early next week for going home. We learned a little more about how our lives will be changed. 

First, I will need to be very careful about exposure to others, so our social life will be altered, because we love to entertain people for dinner. Going out and about will also require extra precautions. Fortunately, we have already been schooled in that by the pandemic. 

Second, I have a bone marrow biopsy scheduled for August 4th. We are thankful that it will be performed at the Skyline Kaiser office in Salem and will not require our coming all the way back to the Club. In addition, it sounds like I will need to report to Skyline a couple of times a week for blood draws and potentially for transfusions. At some point after the bone marrow biopsy, I will return to Club Sunnyside for "consolidation" chemotherapy. That will involve a five day stretch with chemo administered every other day. In other words, chemo on days 1, 3 and 5 and rest on days 2 and 4. Such visits are likely to go on for several months, but how often I don't know yet. 

Jill and I have a ton of questions, but Kari assures us that they will have already answered all of them verbally and in writing by the time I leave. I suspect one project when we get home will be to get bigger pill boxes so that we can put morning and evening pills in groups to help us keep my dosages straight. We already use such a system, but I think there will be more pills added to the ones I already take. 

Jill is a little nervous about being my "caretaker," and I understand that, but she won't have to become a nurse or anything remotely like that. Once again I have told her that we will hire some domestic help, so she doesn't become my caretaker instead of my wife. 

We finally got our walk outside after lunch and my transfusion (which I was able to double up with a nap for efficiency's sake). Equipped with some fresh red blood cells and a bit of shut eye, I was rarin' to go. We did an extra long loop today to make up for the fact that we didn't get the morning constitutional. According to my trusty iPhone, I have walked 1.2 miles today, which exceeds my goal of daily walking a mile or more.