Platelets 101

As a refresher, Nonnie receives platelets when her counts drop below 10,000. When she has a fever, she will get platelets when that number drops below 20,000. That is also when the "fire drill" is conducted. This weekend, she did not have a fever, but the donor platelets only raised up to 15,000 and then dropped the next day to around 8,000.

Yesterday, the doctors decided to give Nonnie the platelets that Mike had donated last week. Within an hour of the infusion, her numbers jumped from 8,000 to 44,000. Even crazier, the sores she developed in her mouth were gone before lunch! It is likely that she will need the second and last unit of Mike's platelets by the end of the week, which only have a 7-10 day shelf life. Mike is very excited that he was able to help his mom, and will likely be called on again in the near future.

Kenny and Kathy Winkler came by today for a really nice visit, and they brought a bag filled with activities to pass the time. It included coloring books, UNO, playing cards and a dice game. What great friends!

Speaking of old friends, Judge Ward stopped by the house last week and gave Papa 2 photo albums from his summer trip to Africa to share with Nonnie. Judge Ward is a long-time family friend and is the person who Papa credits his photo album expertise to. Nonnie told me she spent 2 days looking at all of the beautiful pictures and it helped take her mind elsewhere.

Nonnie has had continual support and encouragement from the staff, in fact, they have been giving her the "thumbs up" indicating that they heard about the successful platelet transfusion.