Dumb Transfusion
What a day we had on Wednesday!
Crappy, dumb transfusion day.
I hated every single minute of Wednesday...there, I said it.
I haven't been so angry, so resentful, so...EVERYTHING as I was Wednesday.
Things started out okay, the IV went in the very first time! That hasn't happened in almost forever. One stick. They started the transfusion out at 10ml/hour which is snail pace slow. Her pre-meds were fine, nothing out of the ordinary with that so we were expecting smooth sailing.
About an hour into it, she began having reactions. She was overcome with excruciating pain in every single one of her joints. She described the pain like when you have a raging fever and your whole body aches, even your skin only 10 times worse. She just laid there shaking, then the migraine started and then the breathing problems. The nurse came in to check her vitals and she had a low grade fever and her blood pressure had tanked. It was 88/44. That's pretty low. Her heart rate was pretty high and that is not a great combination.
They totally shut down the transfusion and hung a bag of fluids and pushed an entire liter through in just a few minutes hoping to flush the plasma through faster. That didn't work so they gave her an injection of solumedrol, a steroid, and Zofran for the nausea. This brought her some relief and after an hour or so, they started the plasma back up, really slow...again. By 4pm she still hadn't finished the first bottle, she still had two more to go!
The nurse's leave short stay therapy at 6pm so we were given the option to be moved out to the main floor of the hospital in a regular room or come back Thursday and finish up. NO way was I coming back, we were already miserable there was no sense spreading that over two days.
We moved into a regular room and she continued to have small reactions, lots of pain, headaches and blood pressure spikes and drops. When we left the hospital at 9:45, her blood pressure was 81/41! In my mind, I was thinking, should they really be letting her go with a blood pressure so low? Oh well...they did.
Before we left, I lobbied for anything they could give her to squelch the bad headache already starting. I do not want to make an ER visit this weekend with Meningitis. They loaded her up with Toradol and sent us on our way.
So far, things are stable but its usually day two when things get hairy...today is day 2! Crossing my fingers things go okay. I have to drive up to the valley for a doctor's appointment for myself so that will mean I'll be gone for about 4 hours. C'est la Vie!
Crappy, dumb transfusion day.
I hated every single minute of Wednesday...there, I said it.
I haven't been so angry, so resentful, so...EVERYTHING as I was Wednesday.
Things started out okay, the IV went in the very first time! That hasn't happened in almost forever. One stick. They started the transfusion out at 10ml/hour which is snail pace slow. Her pre-meds were fine, nothing out of the ordinary with that so we were expecting smooth sailing.
About an hour into it, she began having reactions. She was overcome with excruciating pain in every single one of her joints. She described the pain like when you have a raging fever and your whole body aches, even your skin only 10 times worse. She just laid there shaking, then the migraine started and then the breathing problems. The nurse came in to check her vitals and she had a low grade fever and her blood pressure had tanked. It was 88/44. That's pretty low. Her heart rate was pretty high and that is not a great combination.
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| These are crappy pictures because it was so dark...88/44, I have never seen it that low, at least until it dropped again to 81/41! |
They totally shut down the transfusion and hung a bag of fluids and pushed an entire liter through in just a few minutes hoping to flush the plasma through faster. That didn't work so they gave her an injection of solumedrol, a steroid, and Zofran for the nausea. This brought her some relief and after an hour or so, they started the plasma back up, really slow...again. By 4pm she still hadn't finished the first bottle, she still had two more to go!
The nurse's leave short stay therapy at 6pm so we were given the option to be moved out to the main floor of the hospital in a regular room or come back Thursday and finish up. NO way was I coming back, we were already miserable there was no sense spreading that over two days.
We moved into a regular room and she continued to have small reactions, lots of pain, headaches and blood pressure spikes and drops. When we left the hospital at 9:45, her blood pressure was 81/41! In my mind, I was thinking, should they really be letting her go with a blood pressure so low? Oh well...they did.
Before we left, I lobbied for anything they could give her to squelch the bad headache already starting. I do not want to make an ER visit this weekend with Meningitis. They loaded her up with Toradol and sent us on our way.
So far, things are stable but its usually day two when things get hairy...today is day 2! Crossing my fingers things go okay. I have to drive up to the valley for a doctor's appointment for myself so that will mean I'll be gone for about 4 hours. C'est la Vie!
=( So sorry! I hope today was okay for her and you were able to go to your appointment. Hope she feels better fast!
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