Day +26- Another Day and Night in Hospital

Keri has been helping Deb since we first came to UAMS. She used to drop in at the Markham to draw labs and encourage the patients. Now she is a quality manager and teaches nurses new protocols.

The Routine for living in the hospital is to lay around all  the time, have IV's in-process constantly, food trays brought in three times a day, labs all the time, the trash and dirty linens picked up, pills brought on schedule, and lots of naps. Plenty of middle-of-the-night company! Mid morning, the doctor makes rounds with his entourage. 

Our young nurse is about to have her first child-a son! He will be named Ross. Congrats! She regularly goes to third world nations on medical missions. She's spent a lot of time in Haiti and Nepal.

The fun part is the relational aspects of caregivers to patient. We've had visitors from over at Infusion-4 in the Rockefeller center drop is several times. The nurses and Techs work 12 hour shifts. We get to know about each other's families and interests. Classmates  and caregivers meet in the hall or in the refreshment room. Everyone has a story. We get to enjoy the stories and share ours.

We'd love to hear yours! 

Our tech today is so cheerful! It's hard to be sad around her! She serves Deb in the most pleasant ways and is a constant encourager!

 This afternoon one of the Chaplains called on us. He used to work as a Nike Exec but had wanted to work in ministry all his life. Retirement finally brought that opportunity. His wife is a PA over in the Aging clinic. We hope we live long enough to need her services! Do you?

Deb needed platelets as you can see from the chart below. They were not available supposedly. Later though, they located some. Deb's medical records say that Deb's platelets are  a 'difficult match.' They got that way because Deb has had so many transfusions that her system rejects any blood products that are not a perfect match. We've noticed that most of her matched products come from Wisconsin. Thanks, our loyal Wisconsonite!

 

 White Count-(Normal range=3.0-12.0) below 2 is neutrapenic and indicates Deb's vulnerability for infection.
Platelets -(Normal range 150-500)a whitish colored component of blood. Low platelets=higher Woozy factor!
CRP -(Normal range = 0.0-10) An indicator of relative health. Lower is better. When the number creeps up, Deb could be getting sick.

Day  White Count  Platelets  CRP

0         0.04               29              12.8
1         0.07               15              77.0
2         0.03               42            140.3
3         0.07               27            144.1
4         0.23               52            206.0
5         1.21               33            168.2
6         2.32               26            214.0
7         2.29               11            209.3
8         2.84               25            230.2
9         2.32               12            234.1
10       2.66               24            220.1
11       2.50               15            196.0
12       2.54               28            186.0
13       1.98               18            181.0
14       1.22               28            199.9
15       0.95               20            138.6
16       0.83               32            129.4

17       0.86               22            121.4

18       0.70               12            110.3 

19       0.55                9             159.2

20       0.75              14             162.9

21       0.36              26             127.9

22      0.53              13              86.2

23      0.34              28             59.6 

24     0.29               14              95.8 

25     0.38               28            114.5

26     0.40              17              129.1