Week 3 gets a triple Yay

Corby, Steve and Heidi holding the remains of her Coiffe

For anyone counting, it's actually Week 3 plus a day, but that requires higher math and counting skills than I want to invoke which will lead to. . . okay, we've been there too many times.

We were told this morning that Heidi's white blood count went up.  The doctors came in on their rounds this morning and reported her red counts also went up.  "Double Yay" exclaimed Heidi.  "No, triple yay" replied Amit (whose name is also Dr. something I can't spell or pronounce), "your platelet count went up also."  This was amusing only because Dr. Amit _____ is not the type of person to exclaim, "Triple Yay!"  It is a sign that Heidi's enthusiasm has resumed and is even generating a surplus.

Holding other coiffe remains



It is also good news, perhaps, that her bone marrow is doing what it's supposed to do.  In this, I refer not to her enthusiasm but the trifecta plus-up in blood counts.  It may mean she won't need any more transfusions during this stint in the hospital.  I couldn't get the doctors to predict a discharge date, though.  Apparently my pension for planning has not overflowed and rubbed off on the white-coated ones. 

Heidi is still on the three different antibiotics, all given intraveneously.  The last one she started getting for the C. difficile in her gut.  The ironic part is that one of the possible side effects of the antibiotic is diarrhea, which is exactly the problem it is supposed to fix.

Color Coordinated

Okay, that's two jokes that were probably much funnier when they were told the first time.  Is everyone at least enjoying the photos in this post?

Okay, one more try.  Bruce gets a yay for donating blood yesterday.  He was all concerned about the question on the pre-donor screening about being in England at any time in the last 20 years.  Apparently they are concerned about people who could have contracted Crutchfield-Jacobs or taken a liking to vegemite.  Either can taint the blood. 

 

This is from a few days ago when Heidi was feverish,
but Monica is camera-shy so I have to include it when possible

This is my call out to everyone who might get intimated  by the blood donation pre-screening questionaire.  It can be very overwhelming.  They ask a lot of stuff that can make you worry.  But it's not worth getting too excited about.  If they screen you out, you just walk out to the snack section and eat their crackers and drink their juice and go home. 

The question on the blood donation questionaire that I always want to argue is the one about exchanging money for sex.  I have trouble answering that one.  I always want to ask the lab-coated ones if there are really people out there who don't pay in some way for sex.  Sure, most of us aren't actually exchanging dollars, but there is always some indirect payment, whether it be dinner or mowing the lawn.  So for the purposes of blood donation, I don't pay and I don't eat vegemite.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.