Second Transfusion
Setting up a transfusion across state lines and with various doctors can seem complicated and overwhelming. Thankfully at Primary Children's Hospital they set you up with a case manager/care coordinator. She took care of everything and then called to tell me I should be hearing from some one at EIRMC soon. I gave it a couple hours and called them. They said they needed orders from a doctor and still hadn't received them. I called our awesome case manager and she said because they don't have rites to have a doctor in Utah send over an order to a hospital in Idaho they needed to talk to our primary caregiver/family doctor and have them send the orders over. So I called our family doctor except it's Friday and the main doctor we see is out of the main office at a different facility this Friday. I left a message with them to call back.
Having had experience in the past we knew that once the doctor's office/clinic in Utah/hospital doctors go home on Friday our chances of getting things taken care of in a timely manner with fewer hoops to jump through would be nil. So I got a call back from the family doctor's office saying they would get it taken care of. They close at 4 and my husband said give them until 3 before calling again to check on things. At 3:02 the nurse manager called and asked if I could take Henry over in 20 minutes. So finally all the ducks are in a row to at least get him in as an outpatient admit for a transfusion. Since my husband works at the hospital he came up after he got off work and hung out most of the time with our boy. While they were getting everything lined out it was nice to have Henry already accessed (the port is under the skin and to access it they put an iv type needle into the port which is a sterile procedure). They were able to take Henry's blood pressure (an important measurement when transfusing blood and in general with Leukemia to check on the heart) on his leg which he didn't hate as much as his arm getting squeezed. His blood pressure and heart rate were slightly high which was our experience when his hemoglobin was low last time. Again, this is why we wanted to have the transfusion earlier even though when we left Primary Children's he was still at a 8.9 and below 8 is the protocol for when they usually give blood. Henry could have easily dipped below HIS threshold in the middle of the night if we hadn't pushed things. So they had to do another type and cross for the blood they have in this state at this hospital and then they started the transfusion. When all was said and done Henry was there for just short of six hours. But the beauty of the hassle is that it could have easily been a 14 hour day driving to and from SLC. Or an overnight stay in the hospital. Dad could just take the elevator to get to his boy and I could stay with our other children who were not prepared for mom to leave for another longer than expected trip to the hospital.
Having had experience in the past we knew that once the doctor's office/clinic in Utah/hospital doctors go home on Friday our chances of getting things taken care of in a timely manner with fewer hoops to jump through would be nil. So I got a call back from the family doctor's office saying they would get it taken care of. They close at 4 and my husband said give them until 3 before calling again to check on things. At 3:02 the nurse manager called and asked if I could take Henry over in 20 minutes. So finally all the ducks are in a row to at least get him in as an outpatient admit for a transfusion. Since my husband works at the hospital he came up after he got off work and hung out most of the time with our boy. While they were getting everything lined out it was nice to have Henry already accessed (the port is under the skin and to access it they put an iv type needle into the port which is a sterile procedure). They were able to take Henry's blood pressure (an important measurement when transfusing blood and in general with Leukemia to check on the heart) on his leg which he didn't hate as much as his arm getting squeezed. His blood pressure and heart rate were slightly high which was our experience when his hemoglobin was low last time. Again, this is why we wanted to have the transfusion earlier even though when we left Primary Children's he was still at a 8.9 and below 8 is the protocol for when they usually give blood. Henry could have easily dipped below HIS threshold in the middle of the night if we hadn't pushed things. So they had to do another type and cross for the blood they have in this state at this hospital and then they started the transfusion. When all was said and done Henry was there for just short of six hours. But the beauty of the hassle is that it could have easily been a 14 hour day driving to and from SLC. Or an overnight stay in the hospital. Dad could just take the elevator to get to his boy and I could stay with our other children who were not prepared for mom to leave for another longer than expected trip to the hospital.
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