Re-admitted.

What a pain! We came into ward 1 on monday to have a blood test and went home again.
The hospital called later in the afternoon and asked if I could come back in for a transfusion of platelets, so we drove back in again at 4pm.
However I developed a fever in the afternoon and was shivering despite the sunny day.
I had a feeling they would keep me in so I grabbed a spare tee-shirt and shorts just in case.

Sure enough they decided to pump me full of antibiotics just in case and hold me overnight. I was supposed to come in early this morning anyway to have a line inserted into my neck, so in a way it made sense to stay regardless.
I had a terrible night's sleep, weird dreams and unable to get comfortable with the IV line in my arm. This morning the doctors have said they want me to stay another night as well, just to make sure. With my blood counts almost non-existent it makes sense.

The line they will insert in my neck is the same type that I had done in 2006 for stem cell harvesting. On that occasion the surgeon had no idea how to install it and after three attempts the line was finally put in by a colleague. The whole episode was horrific for me as it is done under a local. It took and hour and a half instead of twenty minutes. I laid a complaint that was upheld and resulted in the hospital changing the way it trains it's theatre staff.

So as you can imagine I'm fairly apprehensive about going back into theatre today. I've asked to have a sedative before hand and I will be quizzing the surgeon on their experience in the procedure.

Last night they gave me one unit of platelets and one unit of whole blood. One of the doctors mentioned today that the surgeon putting the line in wanted me to have a platelet count of at least 80 before he would go ahead. I laughed.. it was 8 yesterday and to get to 80 would mean transfusing about 5 units. Something that just isn't going to happen. I guess we shall see.