October 20 - Blood Work

October 20 - Blood Work

This morning was a fairly normal morning. We were a few minutes late getting out of the house and didn't get to the lab until 8:15 instead of our normal 8:00, but otherwise it went great.

We got to the lab and there was a short wait. The older lady ahead of us was very talkative with Levi in the waiting room. He was somewhat talkative back, but mostly just shy, and wanting to play. He was being a goofball in the waiting room! And wanted to take lots of pictures!

Finally it was Levi's turn to go in. He went running in to pick out his band-aid. He was a little confused that P called him in when the lady hadn't come out yet (she was in the restroom), but once I assured him that P had said he could go in he went running right in. He picked out his Sesame Street band-aid and climbed up in the chair.

The draw did not go well at all :( We started in his right arm, and although he set pretty still, he did wiggle at just the wrong point and P blew the vein. His right arm vein is getting very tired and bruised and has some scar tissue building up on it. So we switched to his left arm. Levi hates having his left arm done. I am not sure if he remembers the attempts from when he was younger (when he was little everyone thought the vein looked better so would try, but could never get it! to the point where we stopped allowing people to attempt in that arm) or if it actually does hurt worse, or what, but he hates it. I held him as still as we could and we got him distracted by looking at P's pictures. But it didn't go well. The needle went through the vein and she was able to pull it back and get the blood to come out, but it was slow going and not flowing well at all. And through all this Levi was SCREAMING, which doesn't help the situation. The blood basically stopped flowing so we stopped attempting the draw. P was sure that there was enough blood in the purple tube for the CBC but wasn't quite sure about the green tube for the LDH. I told her not to stress about that, the CBC was the important one, I need the platelet count, but if we don't get the LDH number it's not the end of the world. As P was putting the band-aid on Levi's left arm, the lady came out of the bathroom and apologized for taking so long and such, P snapped at her that she would have to wait. I think P was pretty stressed at this point! P loves Levi and hates it when he screams. I think it really gets to her emotionally!

Levi headed off to pick a prize out of the treasure box. He found green play-dough with play-dough tools attached to it and he was in love. He kept asking if he could play-dough in my car. I very quickly told him no. He gave P a big hug! And then was out of there.

When blood draws don't go well, Mommy caves and gets donuts!

The results came in all by themselves today! YAY! The system worked the way it's supposed to. The LDH count was included, so the green tube had enough blood in it, so that was good. His platelet count was 237! Not bad, a 27 point increase in a week, so mostly a plateau. At this point in the cycle that is what we are looking for! Levi will once again get Monday off and we will be back for lab work on Thursday!