Nosebleeds

Ryan was sleeping when I got to the hospital this morning at 9:30. I thought it kind of odd that he was still sleeping, but as I was standing by the door, putting on my gown, I saw his sign: Attention Staff - My school called and we're on a 2-hour delay so I will be operating on that schedule. He got a pretty good laugh from the doctors and nurses for that one. The doctor came in a little after 10 and he checked out Ryan's rash - he said that they were a little concerned for nothing. He thought maybe the rash looked a little better today than yesterday, but it wasn't getting worse.

Ryan's white count was 200 today, continuing to bounce back and forth between 200 and 300. His hemoglobin count was 7.9 so he got 2 units of blood today and then by the middle of the morning he was having a pretty bad nosebleed so he also got platelets today. Actually, this afternoon he had a second nose bleed and so he might be getting a second bag of platelets sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

When Ryan's first bag of blood was finished, the nurse flushed it through to get all the blood in and then Ryan's nose started to drip blood. He told the nurse that she pushed the blood through too quickly because it was now shooting out his nose. She got a good laugh out of that.

Other than the nosebleeds, this was a pretty good day. Ryan's throat is feeling a little better - he says things are more tender now than sore. He was thinking about asking if they would turn his pain medicine down some to see how he would get along. After all the excitement with the nose bleeds, I don't think he asked, maybe tomorrow.

We pray that the platelets that Ryan has gotten will help with clotting his blood so that he doesn't have nose bleeds tomorrow.

-A