Making a Run on the Bank
The doctors have sent a blood sample to the blood bank (which is part of the hospital) to test it for HLA antibodies, the little buggers which could be latching on to the platelet cells and tearing off their outside “skin” (as it was described to me), thus making the cells come apart. They (the doctors, not the platelets) aren’t sure if I actually have the antibodies, so want to do the test before deciding a course of action. Bummer is the results of the test may not be available until the end of this week or early next week.
Yesterday evening an hour after the bag of platelets was given to me, my count had gone up to 25 from the early-morning number of 19. (I don’t know the rate at which it changes, but this suggests to me a change of at least 7+ in the count, which is near the common average of 10—near enough to make me not sure what the deal is yet.) I’m getting two bags of blood tonight because my Red Cell Count (RCC) went under 9.0 to 8.5, and I expect tomorrow I’ll be getting more platelets.
Apparently they’ll just keep topping up my platelets as long as they go to the low end of the range 10-20, awaiting the test results. And time slowly drags on while we still await upward movement of the daily numbers (go white cells, go).
Knitting with Indiana Jones
Today Elana taught me what you do when you’ve completely botched a row and want to do it over again. Apparently I’d knit a “short row” (which sounds to me like the start of the “Short Round” character from an Indiana Jones movie). I’d been knitting a row, and at some point along the way a nurse came to talk to me, so I’d stopped and put the knitting needles down.
When I picked them back up later, I couldn’t remember which side I’d been making—so I picked one, and kept going. Turns out I was doing the equivalent of driving 2/3 of the way down the driveway, then doing a U-turn and driving right back up. I can see it now, and also know how you undo all 20 stitches of a row to try them over again.
I’m thinking of this as the first pop quiz in this interesting class I’m doing. Hope I’m passing. Think I can bribe the teacher?
