I suppose it was just a matter of time before Ray needed a blood transfusion. He's been lucky that he hasn't needed one before now. Today his hemoglobin level dropped to the point at which they decided to give him two units of blood. What we thought would only be an hour visit to the hospital for labs turned into a five hour visit, making for a long morning. And to top it off, after waiting that long, he ended up not receiving the transfusion yet!
Apparently they must match the blood they give to your blood so they first test it for antigens. Say what? Antigens are foreign substances which causes the formation of antibodies. An antibody screen is done to test for antibodies that could cause a serious transfusion reaction. If antibodies are identified then the blood bank has to find blood that does not have that antigen in it. Wouldn't you know, they found an antigen in Ray's blood. And unfortunately they did not have any blood in their supply that matched Ray's & therefore had to locate a match outside of the hospital. So because it was going to take a couple more hours or more to have the blood delivered to the hospital PLUS approximately 5 hours to complete the transfusion, we opted to return in the morning. Remember, that's on top of the 5 hours we'd already been there!
Let's hope tomorrow we get it done in a timely manner. And if not, well then we'll try to remain 'patient'. Hmm... I've always wondered why they refer to people seeing a doctor as a "patient" cause often we're not. I think we need a new term. And so it goes...
Followup Thursday 3/21/13:
No problems today. Arrived at hospital at 7:30 AM & Ray received his transfusion and we were back home by 2:00. He's up at the shuffle courts right now shuffling with his Dad! All is well.
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