We went to Dr. Ray Page, my local oncologist, yesterday to get the weekly blood testing started and to update him on what had happened while we were in Houston. M. D. Anderson sends him information and we supplied him with our personal information. It was a good visit but the best thing was he was encouraged with my numbers. The testing for Thursday showed that my platelets were at 23,000. I have not had platelets for a week and before they would dip to about 13, 000 in a week. My hemoglobin was 8.5 and it has been two weeks since I have had blood so it seems to be holding. I go back on Monday to have it checked again, these numbers will serve as a baseline for the future.

Arthur and I have gotten to thinking that if anything can go wrong it will with us. I said I had to have another bone marrow biopsy before we left Houston. We did and I always have it done under sedation because it is very painful. The first one I had was not under sedation so I learned not to do that again. All went well, we thought, but when we arrived at the Aphersis Clinic for an infusion for pneumonia the nurse noticed that I was bleeding. Sure enough my platelets were so low that my blood was not clotting. She was not happy that I had not been checked more closely before they sent me from the unit where I had the biopsy done. She cleaned it up and put a great deal of gauze on the area and told me to sit so I could apply pressure on it. The biopsy is taken in the hip area about the level of the tailbone. It bled through again and then a tech was sent to get it stopped. He cleaned up the area and applied pressure on it for about 10 minutes. He said applying pressure on a wound like this is very important. Arthur acted as his assistant and opened the materials he needed. I had lost so much blood that I was given a unit of platelets and a platelet binder. Then finally I received the infusion for prevention of pneumonia. With all of this, we were in the hospital for another full day and we thought we would be back in the apartment by noon.

Had the day off today and that was nice. I still have the energy of a slug so did very little today.