Memorial Weekend

After having our air card swiped during a sleep walking expedition, we are finally back on line again! I apologize for the limited blogging.

Memorial weekend marked Carlene's last episode of low blood counts. Of course, she could not just sail through it smoothly. Saturday evening she began to feel light headed and started running a fever. After calling the on call doctor at Children's Hospital we were sent to our local ER. So we packed up and headed in around 10:30 pm. I chose to go to Lancaster Community Hospital this time because I have started getting bills from AV Hospital from the last visit. It seems that Blue Cross is undergoing contract negotiations with them so they are not a covered hospital right now. I had no prior experience with Community and I wish it was that way still! Our experience was horrible and I will never go back willingly. If we had not already experienced this before I would not have really known the difference, but there was no sense of urgency at Community and it took 1 1/2 hours before they finally got around to drawing her blood. At AV her blood was drawn within a half hour of walking in the door of the hospital and she was wisked away into a private room that was sealed off with caution signs and nobody entered without being masked and gloved up. However, at Community she was placed in what I came to call the closet. It was curtained partition of their main room which housed the supplies for all of the ER. So every couple of minutes staff entered the room to get something from our "closet". When I questioned them I was told they did not have private rooms. Long story short...at 1:30 she got some Rocephin antibiotic and was sent home with the need to return the next day. Being the holiday weekend we had no choice but to go back again. We returned on Sunday and things were better, but the bad taste of our prior visit still remains in my memory. She received more Rocephin and they re-checked her blood counts. Her white blood count was up to 900 from the 600, but her red blood cells and her hemoglobin were both still critically low. The doctor at children's hospital said that because of the holiday, we would wait until Tuesday and see if her counts would improve themselves. Since they were not declining, but holding steady we were safe to wait. Had it been any other time she would have received a blood transfusion. So over the holiday, she took it easy and completed homework. On Tuesday, her counts were still not normal but were increasing enough to keep her from getting a transfusion. She is now feeling much better, her fever and lightheadedness is gone!

Our next step is a PET scan on June 1 and a consult with her doctor.