Hi all, While reading all the in the beginning series, I didn't see anyone that had been put in the hospital in the beginning; I was. My question is, why are some patients put in the hospital and others are not? My onc gave me no choice on my first visit to him. He said you have to go to the hospital. They cleaned my blood daily for 4 days with a machine that looked like something from a horror movie hehe. I wonder why most patients aren't sent to the hospital. I've told this story before, but he newbeies might like it. As I said, I was really tired and my son insisted I go to the Doc. as being tired wasn't one of my things. I went to my PP and he checked me all out, and said I think we should do a blood test. I said No, I didn't need one. He insisted, and he had a lab right in his office, so the blood sample was taken.
The next day, he called me and said there was a BIG PROBLEM. Now mind you, I had never had any serious illness, and I didn't think there was anything to worry about. The Doctor said my WBC count and Platelets were way too high. He saId I had to go to an Onc right away. I ask could it wait and he said no, he had already set up the appointment, and I was to go right then. So, off I went. This onc also had a lab in his office, and took a sample of blood. He came back with a grim look on his face and told me I was brave to come to his office alone; well, I wasn't alone, my son was in the waiting room, so we called him in and was told he had good news and bad news. He said I had leukemia, that was the bad news, but they had developed a new drug that would put in into remission; that was the good news. Then he said he had to do a BMA. Now I didn't know what he was talking about, but I gave him permission to do one right there in his office. No sedation of any kind. The nurse was holding my hand and kept asking me if I was alright. Later, when I thought about it, I must have been in shock because I really can't remember if the BMA hurt or not. When this was all over, the onc said I must go right in the hospital. I remember asking him if I could go later, but he insisted I go right then. After being checked into the hospital, I was taken to a large cold room. The nurse was explaining that they were going to put a hole in my neck and insert a catheter. It only took a few minutes, and I thought wow! that wasn't so bad. I thought that was all that was going to happen and I would be going home soon. Then, after being taken back to my room, there it was! the machine from outer space. A nurse came along with the machine, and she was putting it all together and seemed so happy to be doing it. It wasn't long before she had me hooked up to the machine, and she told me to get comfortable because it would take some time. The blood started flowing through the machine, and the nurse started exclaiming to me, SEE See all the white blood cells coming out!!! I looked, and sure enough, I could see all those WBC coming out. She had bag after bag of bad blood when it was over, and I felt pretty shaky. The next day I told the nurse that my blood had been cleaned and I would going home. Oh No! she said, there are at least 3 more cleanings to be done. Now the funny thing is that when I got all the cleanings and finally went home, my WBC and Platelets were as high as ever. I hadn't gotten my Gleevec as of yet, and I was on Hydrea and some other pills. The onc even put me on Agrylyn for a few days, then my counts all dropped way too low. He wanted me to do a blood transfusion, but on this I balked. I knew if I was taken off those pills, my blood counts would come back up, and they did. They finally stabilized after all this and were great up until last Oct. You know the rest of the story. Keep fighting all you CML WARRIORS. Jeanie<3 **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to CMLHope@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
