Saturday

Sorry I did not post yesterday, it was kind of a busy day.  Fred's hemoglobin came back Saturday morning at 8.3.  He was released from the hospital and we are now home. 

We go tomorrow morning for blood work at are local doctor and pray that his hemoglobin in still in the 8 or higher range.
Platelets were 36,000 as of Saturday morning and definitely hope they go higher also.

day 3

Fred received 2 units of blood last night.  His hemoglobin rose  to 8.3 this morning.  He did not have a temperature all night and handled the transfusion fine.

He felt great this morning and even had color in his face (he was very pale).  He was allowed to go outside and walk around which he handled well and was not short of breath.

This afternoon his temperature spiked at 102.4.  Antibiotics and Tylenol brought his temperature back down to normal.  More blood work was ordered.

I will let you know what tomorrow brings!

day 2 in hospital

Fred was fever free all day while we waited for them to find blood for his transfusion.  He has antibodies that make his blood very "special" as one nurse told us.

They finally got blood and of course he started to run a fever.  They gave him antibiotics and by 8:30 tonight his fever was normal again.  They started the transfusion at 9:00 pm.  It will be a long night cause they are giving it to him very slowly to avoid any reaction to the blood.

I will post tomorrow how the first bag of blood went and see when and if they will give him the second bag.  They are trying to figure out where his blood is going that his number drop so drastically.

Blood

Fred was admitted into Mayo Hospital today.  His hemoglobin is down to 5.7, normal is 13.5-17.5.  He needs a blood transfusion which they were going to do about 5 pm, but of course since Fred does nothing normal, they have not been able to find any blood because of the antibodies in his blood.  So as of 9 pm tonight, no blood transfusion yet.

Will keep you informed!

finally posting...

I know it has been a long time since I posted anything on here, but Fred has been having some rough days.

We went to Mayo on Tuesday, July 2nd and presented to the doctor all the problems Fred has been experiencing.  In total 18 vials of blood was taken and a chest x-ray.

Fred tested positive to a test that I had to look up to understand completely.  Fred has autoimmune hemolytic anemia which is rare and causes antibodies to be made against a person's own red blood cells.  In other words, he has antibodies attacking his red blood cells.  He received an injection of Procrit, which he will have to receive weekly to boost his red blood cells.  If this does not work it will probably mean a blood transfusion.

He is also running continuous fevers in the 100 range.  He has 2 antibiotics for this, which yet have not helped. 

We are just taking one day at a time.  He has to have weekly blood work done, so we will see how well his blood work is next week.

It was another up and down for Fred and I.  We went to Jacksonville for Fred to have blood work done, see the doctor and then his round of chemo.

Plans changed...he had the blood work and we saw the doctor.  His blood counts were to low for chemo once again. 

New plan...no chemo until we go back May 28th in which time he will have a bone marrow biopsy and CAT scan to see where he stands.  We will meet with the doctor the following week for the results and go from there.

We are back in Jacksonville and I never saw Fred so happy when he was told they were going ahead with his chemo today after two failed attempts.  His numbers did not go up much from last week so they have modified his chemo this week.  He will only have chemo two days and then the Neulasta injection on Wednesday.

This round they are cutting out the Fludarabine and Cytoxin on Wednesday due to his counts.

Thank you for your continued prayers and good thoughts. We appreciate it as we get through this bump in the road.