My day of laziness paid off today! It started on the couch, then moved to the pool by late morning. There is no specific time I have to be at the hospital for labs (have my blood drawn and tested), but I have the weekly appointment set for after school time. Today the water felt so good, I knew I wasn't going to make it by my "appointment" time, but it's not like I'm meeting with the doctor and need to be on time. Amy was poolside with me today and joined me when I finally decided it was time to be productive. So we began our journey to Barnes. But leave it to us, on our way we became distracted and found ourselves at Chill. After a delicious detour of fro yo and chocolate, we were back on our way. When I signed in, the Siteman Center was pretty empty - I had an ity bity wait :). While my tech was drawing my blood, she told me that they had one of their busiest days at the lab that they've had in awhile - so it was a great thing that I came later in the day! Otherwise I would have had a 30-45 minute wait (and that would have been VERY annoying since it takes 30 seconds for her to draw my blood). The best part of it all - the lab was so busy today, they ran out of parking validation tickets. This is AWESOME because she had to go next door to the treatment desk to get a validation ticket for me. Validation tickets take a percentage off of the price of parking. Since I am usually there for under 10 minutes, my price leaving the garage is usually $1.50. No, it's not expensive, but in my last 2 months there I would have spent almost $20 in just parking (as I see it, they are already getting enough of my money). At the lab I get a validation ticket for 50% off of parking. At the treatment side (where patients get chemo) you get 100% validation. I left the Siteman center overly happy that my laziness got me out of paying parking. Sweet day :)
As for the labs - my nurse coordinator called this evening to fill me in on my counts. My white blood cells are still low, but not as low as last week! But my neutrofills (the WBC that fight infections) are pretty low, as well as my platelets. This doesn't mean a whole lot, just to make sure I stay away from germs, sickness and don't get cut (low platelets = bleeding). If you're at all interested, this link is very informative about blood count lingo http://www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/patient_education/pepubs/cbc97.pdf. The reason I have my blood counts tested every week is because the chemo, while killing the tumors, also kills blood cells. My lowered counts reassured me that I should not be attending an upcoming float trip with friends (too many germs in that mucky water - pretty bummed about that) but I won't feel so guilty when I repeat my lazy day tomorrow :)
No comments:
Post a Comment