Friends of Geraldine

Hello again! Today is Thanksgiving and I hope everyone is having a wonderful Turkey Day. I am so grateful that I am not in the hospital yet and able to enjoy this holiday with my family and friends. Here is the latest recap of this week. Monday I went to Richmond and had some blood work done. I was suppose to have surgery in the morning for placement of my apheresis catheter. My blood work came back that I had no platelets. Platelets are part of your immune system that help your blood coagulate. By having no platelets, a simple bruise could make me bleed to death internally. I need to live in padded world with no sharp edges. Because I had no platelets, my surgery was postponed until I received a platelet transfusion. So I got 2 units of platelets. Platelets look like the yellow stuff that comes out when people have lipo. It is definitely not appetizing, but neither is blood.

It took a couple of hours and then I was cleared to go into surgery. This surgery normally takes between 20 minutes to 1 hour. My surgery took 2 hours and it was one of the most awful things that I have been through. I was given conscience sedation which was supposed to relax me and put me out, but it didn’t. I was awake the whole time and felt just about everything. They gave me 9 shots of lidocaine to help numb me, but it wasn’t enough. I started crying and kept crying until they brought me back to the recovery room. The radiology staff was completely unsympathetic and not accommodating to my needs. I kept telling them that I was awake and could feel everything, but they told me because I had received chemo that my body had developed a tolerance to conscience sedation.

Sexy Tubes

Tolerance or not, give me something to knock me the hell out! I really felt out of control and felt like I was a specimen and not a human being. If there is anything that I have learned from this experience is that I will never tolerate any additional pain. Next time I will demand that they either stop and have my surgery rescheduled until they can put me under completely. Like I said before, I felt completely out of control and it didn’t matter what my needs were at the time. Never again ladies and gentlemen. Lesson learned.

So after my butchering session, I ended up with two tubes hanging out of my chest. These tubes will be used to draw blood and take out my stems cells. I look hot! I am totally bringing sexy back! Check out the pictures of my platelets and my new look. On a more positive thought, the results of my PET scan look good and everything will proceed as planned. I have a break today and will not be going to Richmond, but I will be going on Friday. I will continue to keep everyone informed. Again, thank you for all of your comments and texts. You are all wonderful.

Love always,

Geraldine