3rd Hospital Stay, Day 1

What started out as a pretty good morning quickly ended up getting the better of me.

I actually got up and worked out this morning. Doing some split squat, reverse lunges, calf work and shoulder mobility drills. The whole thing only took 20 minutes but it was enough. My hemoglobin has been low as seen by the fact I needed a blood transfusion yesterday. It makes working out difficult compared to what I’m used to but definitely not impossible.

I finished packing my day bag of entertainment, lunch box of snacks, and 2 protein shakes. Afterwards I made my way down town to the Hollings Cancer Center and was promptly given a chair and platelets ordered since we already knew I was low since they ran out of them yesterday.

Just to be on the safe side, they started me on fluids, got everything running. Per the process, about 15-20 minutes in to blood products they take your vitals, blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen. My temperature was 101.4. A little bit above where they’d like to see it. With my white blood cell count down to 420 and my ANC down to zero, it calls for an immediate admission to the hospital.

While in the back of my mind, I knew this would happen, it’s always good to hope that it doesn’t. I had a inkling because I had been getting colder and colder. My fatigue and headaches were getting worse and worse. So, it really was only a matter of time before I was going to be admitted. I just didn’t want it to be now (or ever really, lol).

They loaded me up on some antibiotics while we waited for the transport crew that would take me from Hollings over to the Ashley River Tower. I had asked the nurse if I could run home to get my bags (since in all reality I didn’t feel that bad). She said absolutely not. I asked if I could at least walk myself over there. She said again, absolutely not. I told her that there were a bunch of food trucks on the greenway between the 2 buildings and I just wanted a snack. She gave me a very disapproving look and walked out of the room. It took about about 30 minutes to run the antibiotics and another 30 minutes for the transport team to get there. They didn’t think we could stop by the food trucks either. I thought my idea of snacks was a pretty good one. Thankfully both the nurse and the paramedics had a good sense of humor and tolerated my berating very well.

I spent the next 3 hours waiting in the ER while they ran a Covid test (standard protocol for all patients being admitted to 7West). Covid test came back negative and I napped for a good bit of the time while I was waiting.

When they got my room ready, they wheeled me up to the 7th floor. No gurney this time as I’m still pretty good. I have a mild fever and an even milder headache but otherwise I’m not bad off. As I’m getting settled into my room they bring in another bag of platelets and another round of antibiotics.

Now it’s a waiting game. My numbers are on the floor, they can’t get any lower than zero. We just wait for a day or 2 (hopefully that’s all) and then they’ll release me. A couple of days after I get released we’ll do another bone marrow biopsy and find out where my blast levels are and if we can move to transplant. One day at a time.