Life & Website Updates, June 28

The picture I've selected for today's post is one that I took of abundant lavender while visiting Ireland ten years ago this week. I chose to use a photo of "purple" flowers for this update as a tribute to my Grandma Kay Schwarting, who passed away on June 18th. Our family and her friends said goodbye to her yesterday... and I want to thank all who came to her service/visitation or who have sent cards or messages. I get overwhelmed when I think of the support we have received in the last ten days, as well as the support I've personally received in the last three and half months. Thank you, everyone!

The past week has been extremely busy for me. I've been trying to get so many loose ends tied up before the transplant hospitalization. Midweek, I didn't feel the best - and my blood work has shown that the last, short round of chemo had been causing my blood counts to slowly decrease (after making slow gains in previous weeks). At this point, I can also just "tell" when my numbers are likely dropping. After my blood work on Thursday, my wonderful care coordinator nurse, Sam, agreed with me that I needed to be completely prepared for my short trip to Chicago tomorrow and Tuesday (June 29-30). Even though that blood draw determined my hemoglobin/red blood cell and platelet counts were not at the absolute lowest numbers to require transfusions, Sam ordered transfusions for Friday because my numbers have been trending lower and are approaching those critical numbers - history has shown that my counts can drop quickly, especially my platelets.

Getting transfusions is a bit of a process - the day before, I have to get blood drawn to be "typed and screened" - which means my blood type is confirmed (B+) and screened for antibodies which may cause problems for the transfusion. The results of this test are only valid for 72 hours, so if I go more than three days between transfusions, then I must have the type and screen performed again before the next transfusion.

Once the transfusion process begins, it takes around 2 hours for one unit of blood to be transfused, and up to 45 minutes for one unit of platelets to be transfused. (My "biggest transfusion" was two units of blood and one unit of platelets in one sitting...which made for about a six hour appointment!) I want to give a shout out to the nurses in the Outpatient Infusion Lab at Carle Methodist (Peoria) for being wonderfully efficient and friendly and fun - I genuinely look forward to seeing them and that makes such appointments a little less "appointment-like"!

Thankfully, I have felt much better since receiving a unit each of blood and platelets on Friday, and I feel confident I will sail through my short trip to Chicago. Ed, Joy, and I will drive up to the city in the afternoon tomorrow (June 29) and spend the night near the hospital. I hope to get there early enough that we can walk to the hospital campus and find where we need to go for our appointments. Tuesday morning (June 30), Ed has an 8:30 appointment, while my first appointment is at 10:30. We are scheduled to be done around 3 pm, and then we will drive home. We appreciate prayers for traveling safety, receiving the information we need ahead of the transplant - especially clear answers to our questions, and no unexpected hiccups for the transplant timeline. (My last post goes into detail about the transplant timeline.)

In other news, I think I have finally gotten my website problem solved. Many you have filled out the form on my website so that you will receive an email alert when I publish a new post. Since enabling this feature a month ago, it has simply not worked. After several hours haggling on three separate occasions with the AI "assistant" of this website's hosting platform, I think the problem has been resolved. I know a couple of you will surely let me know if you receive an email! Several of you have told me that you appreciate this website so much - and that makes the stress of creating and maintaining it worth it!

If you'd like to receive an email alert when there's a new update, please navigate back to the home page and fill out the form underneath the most recent updates which are showing there.

Thanks to all for your support, love, and prayers!