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Ok so the transfusion itself wasn’t 9 hours, but we were there for 9 hours.  We arrived at 8:30, and they took my vitals…whoa…I must have been really nervous!  My beats per minute were 121, and my blood pressure was 130 over 80.  I’m usually 80 beats a minute and 95 over 60.  Crazy!  

Anyway, they wanted to access the port, so the nurse came in and stuck the needle in the port.  No blood return.  She pushed harder and wiggled it around – OUCH – trying to get blood.  She took the needle out and tried again, pushing harder this time.  The pressure in my chest was very painful.  Still no blood return.  They decided that maybe it was the needle, so a nurse goes to get another needle.  Meanwhile I am crying because it’s hurting so badly – this is supposed to be the easy part!  The nurse came back saying they didn’t have anymore of the special needles for my port.  I was about to flip out!  This hospital is not getting great reviews from me!  It’s been a bad experience most times I’ve been there.  Well they found the supply of needles and poked me again, this time it worked!  We had blood!  Finally!  They hooked up the bag of blood and we were off and running.  I was told by my doctor that it would take about 2-3 hours per bag…the first bag was 3 1/2 hours as was the second!  It was ridiculous!  I guess since it was my first time, they wanted to be careful.  It took so long.  Martha and I watched 2 movies and looked through a home magazine dreaming of what we would do to a house. 

When we were done, the nurse took the needle out of the port. She pushed on it as if it were a regular IV, and she needed to stop the bleeding.  Ports really don’t bleed much and don’t need the pressure.  That was the most painful thing all day.  After all the prodding and poking earlier, my chest was really sore and that pressure put me over the edge.  I was all tears and told her not to touch me!  I couldn’t believe how much it hurt.  The nurses really don’t have much experience with PowerPorts because they are still so new and not too many people have them.  They just don’t have the experience with them to know everything.

When I finally left the hospital, Martha said that I had more color.  I’ve been pretty pale – yes, paler than usual – the past two months.  Sol said this was the most color he’d seen in my face in months.

So that was the experience…It would have been pretty easy if the port thing didn’t happen, but we’re past that now!  I’ll be starting chemo on Monday at 2:15.  I was told it will only take about 30 minutes.  That’s a lot better than the 4 to 6 hours it took with the other ones.

Some fun news, we are going to have family pictures taken tomorrow.  A lady in the church takes portraits for a living and wants to take family photos for us at no cost!  I am excited!  

Well on that note, I should get some beauty sleep on my beautyrest mattress for tomorrow! 

Thank you for your prayers and your encouragement.  Who knew so many of you have had transfusions?  You helped me, and so I thank you.  Thank you to those of you who donate blood as well.  You are helping people like me. 

Happy Weekend!

Monica

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