Me: I think I was getting on [sis-in-law's] nerves today. She brought her laptop to work, and I was like a kid, 'I'm bored. My arm itches. Are you gonna be working the whole time??'
Me: She totally gave me the mom tone at one point too
Me: *sigh* 'I don't know [my full name]'
Friend: LOL. That is hilarious
Ah, the long-delayed transfusion that is supposed to make my condition better. The result so far? Too soon to tell. But the transfusion itself was painless for the most part. I wasn't, how do you say...conscious when I got my blood transfusion years ago so this was my first time getting all hooked up. The sister-in-law went with me as she was my donor and they got her all set and pumped out some blood and while they separated that from the plasma, I had to fill out insurance forms. I had a sweatshirt on and as I was finishing filling them out, the nurse came over and said something about how she needed me to take my shirt off (so she could get to my arms and insert the needles). I joked that I like a woman who gets right to the point and she let out the most nervous, borderline maniacal laugh I've ever heard. She sounded like the villain in a movie or something. Not what you want to hear from someone seconds before they stab you with sharp instruments. Once the forms were filled out I was hooked up with a needle in each arm. One was pumping out my blood into this machine that separated it from the plasma and sent it into another machine that mixed the blood with the new plasma and then pumped it back into the other arm. The hope with this treatment being that the treated blood will start helping its own cause and prevent my cells from destroying themselves prematurely. It's not a cure and I'll still have to be on meds (most likely) the rest of my life but it's something that hopefully helps keeps the anemia in check. If it works, we can start to taper off some of the steroids (though not all the way) so I'm on just enough to keep my levels where they need to be. If it doesn't work, the next option is removing the spleen which I've been reluctant to do since it seems like such a crap shoot. Some people go into complete and total remission, others get much worse.
About an hour into my treatment, the nurse came back over and said she'd forgotten to give me a form that I needed to fill out as I was being transfused. It had a list of symptoms and I was supposed to mark off if I felt any of them, but I didn't have any major complications. My arms hurt a bit but that's probably because I hate IV's of any kind. The arm where they were putting the blood back in felt cold when it started to go into my arm. And I felt generally kinda...tingly, especially around my mouth and my leg (random, I know). But that was it as far as side effects. As I was reading this form they gave me I noticed, in really tiny print, that the form said something about how no one's sure what the long-term effects of this treatment are. Well that's just fantastic. They're basically removing blood cells from my body (albeit temporarily) so I understand the disclaimer, and I read a similar one on a previous form, but it didn't occur to me that there could be big side effects down the road until then. The biggest issue I had during my treatment was good old fashioned boredom. Once they hook you up, you're just sitting and/or lying there until it's done. They said I could bring stuff to pass the time, so I brought my laptop and the sis-in-law had hers. It did help pass the time but it was awkward to type since I had needles in both arms. Once it was over I got a list of instructions to follow the rest of the day and that was it. It seems like something as big as taking the blood from your body, altering it and then putting it back in should have worse side effects. But none so far. Even the after care instructions were pretty tame so that's a definite upside. Whether or not it works...time will tell. The next blood draw is a big one. But I have a good feeling about it so I guess that's something.
