04/02/08 - Transfusion IX

I had my blood drawn Monday and got the count results yesterday morning. No surprise - they were low. My Hemoglobin was at 7.7 and my platelets were at 12,000, because of my low hemoglobin, I had to go for a transfusion. Although my platelets weren't quite low enough for a transfusion (10,000), my doctors decided that I should get a platelet transfusion anyhow, since I was already getting the hemoglobin and my platelets were trending downward anyhow.


A unit of platelets and two units of RBCs
My dad dropped me off at Moffitt and Laura picked me up after she was done working. We knew I would be there for a while, so we did a similar process as last week. Including travel time, the trip was from 11:15AM to 7:30PM.

Before receiving the platelet transfusion, I was "pre-medicated" with 50mg of Benadryl as a pill. Well, that form of Benadryl apparently did not help much, because I still got some hives. Hives are kind of interesting because they appear randomly. I guess I'm lucky because my experiences with hives have been limited to a few mosquito bite-like areas. If they were more numerous and more itchy, I could see how they could quickly become more annoying.

When I did get the hives, the attendant nurse administered 50mg of intravenous Benadryl, which was a lot more effective than the oral dose for me. The hives stopped itching almost immediately, and went away in what seemed like 15 minutes. The intravenous dose does give me the "euphoric effect" described in my last transfusion entry, but that's not something I mind. The Red Blood Cells don't cause an allergic reaction.

I didn't sleep nearly as much from yesterday's transfusion, even though I Had twice the dose of Benadryl (100mg). This was surprising, because I was already a little sleep-deprived from waking up at 5:00AM. It could have been from my red blood cell count coming up from the transfusion.

The transfusions went well, and for now, I'll just have to wait and see what happens next...