Late evening at the clinic

Cocktail Hour at SCCA

Heidi's daily blood draw was later today, not until 2:30.  Usually it's at 8 or 9am.  By the time they got everything measured and evaluated, it was 4:30 before they decided Heidi needed platelets.  Platelets are what cause your blood to clot.  When they are low, she gets bruised easily and she also gets these little red bumps called Picante.  I may have spelled that wrong.  So here we are at 6pm, waiting for more platelets. 



Waiting for an appt with the vampires



Those of you concerned about whether these are O+ or O- platelets, fear not, for platelets don't have a type.  If Heidi was receiving whole blood, she would be getting O-.  As I discussed before, she is now a mixture of O+ and O-, referred to as a chimera. 

Interesting thing about bone marrow transplants is that she could potentially have received stem cells from a male donor.  I read an article that said there are some advantages for a woman to get male stem cells.  Obviously they aren't strong advantages or that would have been one of the criteria. 

It brings up an interesting discussion, though.  If she had received male stem cells, her blood would have ended up having XY chromosomes.  She would be a female with male blood.  Which might sound interesting to some of you, but the more poignant question to ask is:  would I then be bisexual?  (See how cleverly I turned this discussion to be about me?)

As it turns out, her donor is female and there is no reason to question my preferences. 

Correction.  Susan the nurse brought in what looks like a bag of applesauce and said it was O- platelets.  Even though the platelets themselves don't have a blood type, these platelets came from an O- donor.  Maybe that's important.  But it still looks like applesauce.  Susan the nurse is also the one who took the cockeyed photo at the top, so take it for what it's worth. 

Now it's 7:10 and my Bridgeport Cafe Negro (coffee-infused porter) is gone but Heidi is only halfway through her platelets.  She was never very good at chugging.  Hey, that's a coffee-infused porter.  I could drink that for breakfast!