Transfusion #6

At least I think it is....... I'm loosing count now!!

What a bloody nightmare it has been again. After the last one being so straight forward.

We decided on Friday that she was looking like she needed a transfusion, it had previously been decided that she would have her blood tested tomorrow at St Georges, however, if we did that it means adding on a few hrs to the appt which is at 1.30 and so we would be fighting the traffic home then. Also it would be Wed before she got transfused.

So i rang the ward yesterday (Sunday) and they said to come in about 3pm because at 5pm there would be less drs about.
So i did, she had one go and failed but she said she could only see 2 good veins and wanted a senior dr to do it incase she stuffed it up i guess!!

So i waited for about 1.5hrs and he walked in as his pager went off. He went to answer it and about another 1/2nd later they said that he had been called to a poorly baby in SCBU and would be at least another 2hrs.

So I decided to just come back this morning and get it all done in one shot! (famous last words)

We arrived at 9am about 10am a lovely dr came to put the line in......no joy but she did get some blood out.

So off we went to wait for the results to come back, sure enough she needed a transfusion, her HB was 7.6 and her retic count was 28 (which is good)
By the time we got back onto the ward the dr was going into a meeting but the blood wasn't going to be arriving till about 2pm.

At 2pm she tried again to get a line in. We told her that we were going to be discussing putting a port in tomorrow. She told us to exaggerate how bad it was, she said "tell them it took like 8 times today before we could get a line in"

She tried a couple more times then said she was going to ask someone else to have a go. Someone else came and tried a couple of times then the original dr tried again..........on the 8th attempt they finally got a line in!! In her foot.
I guess we don't need to exaggerate tomorrow then!!!!!

She has wiggly veins that spasm really well, so they get the vein no problem but can't thread it, the cannula only gets in so far then it spasms and it can't go in anymore. Plus now that she has some lovely chubbiness, it means the veins are even harder to see! (she weighed 15lb 12oz today :0))))

She was so upset, she cried and cried so much she was practically asleep before they'd even finished.

But of course she got over it no time!!

The blood went up at about 3.30pm in the end. And here we are now.........she has another 2hrs to go but she's peacefully asleep now, getting some well earned rest.