Stop in for a cup of coffee
Hey Buddy, how ya feelin ???
I'm feeling much better... Not full 100%, but much better than I was last week...
I'm going to take a few more days off to build up my strength...
My hemoglobin levels were just above the critical level yesterday, however I need to build them up more to get to the "normal" range...
They say that normal should be 12.6 - mid 15 range (kind of like battery voltage)... Below 7 they will do a blood transfusion... They say that they've 'brought back' people that dropped to 3.... Mine were at 5 when I went into the hospital, so if I dropped two more points, I could have been in serious trouble - heart attack or death.... Who knows how much longer that would have taken, it depends on the amount of internal bleeding...
I had to get two units of blood transfused before the surgery on Friday and then another one Saturday morning to cover the loss during the procedure... That brought me into the 8's...
They don't like to keep transfusing more blood above 7 because there is a chance I could have a reaction to the blood, or side affects from the transfusion afterwards, that's why they had to keep me for observation and monitor my blood before releasing me...
I have been poked in the arm so much my arms are sore and I look like a herion junkie with all of the 'track marks' in my arm.... (If a cop pulls me over and notices them, I may have to do some 'sobriety tests'....)
My left arm was poked so much, they 'wore out' my vein in there and had to move to a nice big one in my hand...