Yesterday was really something.  My sweetie had a therapy appointment early, but I had friends (my goddaughter and her mother) coming to escort me to the hospital.  I’m glad they were there because it was really hard for me to convey myself from the taxi to the infusion suite.

My weight was down a lot (after a day of not eating), but my blood pressure and temp were okay.  It wasn’t long before they had me in a chair and started the infusion.  I had my favorite nurse.  She said later that I looked pretty scary when I came in.  I can believe that.  She also adjusted the tape on the pump so it didn’t pull my skin, and showed me how to ask them to place the other bits of plastic so they wouldn’t get in my way so much when I try to sleep.

Just as we started, my sweetie came in from his appointment, and greeted our friends.  He was raw from his session, and the nurse chased our friends so he could collect himself.  I reported the nausea from yesterday, so the infusion nurse called in my nurse practitioner and she gave me a prescriptions for another anti-nausea drug that I can take in between doses of the first one.

Over the course of the transfusion (not quite five hours), I always had someone for company.  My sweetie went out to fill the prescription and came back with soup from the cafeteria (which I finished!).  They gave me Benadryl to minimize problems with the transfusion, warning me that it would knock me out so I wouldn’t really feel the effects of the blood until tomorrow (that is, today).  I did fade in and out a bit, but I didn’t ever actually fall asleep.

The timing was really excellent.  The pump came off just after 3:00 and the blood finished not ten minutes later.  They pumped some water into me and observed me for another twenty minutes or so and then we left.

We all came back to our apartment, but just for long enough to exchange lots of hugs, including large hugs for absent spouses.  Then our friends were on their way, and I lay down on the bed where I stayed for the rest of the day.

I should note that when we waited for a cab to come back from the hospital, I had no trouble standng on the curb for the five minutes or so it took to find one.  That wouldn’t have been possible in the morning.

I didn’t sleep well last night.  I was a little febrile, and I’d pretty much slept since getting back from the hospital.  Today I’m tired.  I’m much stronger than I was, but weak enough that we didn’t do our monthly mattress flip and I asked my sweetie to help me change the sheets.  He’s perfectly willing, but I wonder whether I’ll be able to pick that up again later.  We may want to get some household help; we’ll see.

But here I am.  I hope to have a visitor (my college friend from the West Coast) this afternoon.  I’ll call her later this morning and see what we can set up.  Day by day.  Happy Thanksgiving.