The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

Category: General

  • Almost…

    We’re staring at the last few drops of the IVIG dripping one by one. Just a few more minutes….

    Let me take this time to describe the wonderful view outside this room. It’s dark, dreary and rainy. Scanning from left to right, 9 floors up, we have: the hospital parking garage, the red EMergENCY room sign (“erg” aren’t lit up), the 9th street entrance under construction and blocked off, the big old abandoned Pillsbury plant, an enormous puddle-filled parking lot, the Carol Jo Vecchie center with their nice rooms, lots of air conditioning units atop a roof, the unused medical incinerator smokestack, and finally the power plant construction at CWLP.

    I can’t see Smokey Bones from here… that’s a shame. We’ll be there soon for some dinner and some SWEET TEA!

  • Platelets, check.

    The platelet infusion is done.  Now it’s on to the 3 hours of IVIG.

  • Information

    Katherine recommended this site, and I thought I’d pass it along as it seems to be full of lots of good information regarding platelet disorders in general and specifically ITP.

  • Here we are again..

    This morning, Ana had a scheduled blood test (due to our last hospital stay) that came back quite unfavorably with her platelet counts at 7,000.  So they had her come into the hospital to get another platelet transfusion as well as a dosage of IVIG.

    This is the outpatient floor of the hostpital so they are insisting that we’ll be out of here tonight.  It’ll be a while though – she’s currently getting her platelets infused at a rate that will take 2 hours; following that will be the IVIG that will take another 3 hours.

    We haven’t really spoken to any doctors, which is pretty annoying.  This has all been handed down by one, obviously, through the various nurses.

    She’s not in the comfortable Carol Jo Vecchie center, so the rooms aren’t nearly as comfortable and she’s got a roommate.  Keep checking back for updates, I have a nice broadband connection here in the room thanks to Jay.

  • Depth of Field

    F1.4 – a pretty good example of a very shallow depth of field.  It’s probably around 1″ or so, try doing that with a Point-n-Shoot camera!

    SpoonRiverDrive-19.jpg

  • Canon 30D

    I’m bored, so I decided to post a small, 100% crop from my 30D.  This guy passed us in a semi going the opposite direction on a rural highway, both of us going probably 65 or so.  This is a testament to the awesome focusing capabilities of the 30D in AI mode.
    CanonCrop.jpg

    Yeah, I love my camera.

  • :)

    Geek

  • Home!

    We actually got home last night, around 7pm.  Friday morning, Ana was told her platelet count was up to 14,000 (still abysmal) and that she’d be staying another day.   After some begging the doctor said she could get another test in the afternoon and if that looked good, that decision would be reconsidered.

    They came around and tested in the afternoon and she was up to 33,000 and we were given the ok to go home!  It still took several hours to actually leave the hospital but that was expected.

    Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts and prayers this week.  It was nerve racking for a while there and it really helped.

  • Another day… at least.

    This morning Ana was tested and her counts were at 13,000.  A decrease from the previous day.  Come to find out, the nurses messed up and only gave her 1/3 of the dose of steroids she should have had; even after questioning them about it.

    So today she received the correct dosage but has to stay in the hospital for at least another day 😦

  • Hospital Visit Update

    Just an update, we talked with the hematologist this morning and found that Ana’s platelet count has gone from 11,000 to 19,000; a major relief since the miniscule jump from 10,000 to 11,000 the night before.  He seemed very happy with that improvement, even though it’s still technically considered low.