Hotel Leukemia

Today was a very busy day. Van started out with an x-ray because the Chemo that he takes orally every day can sometimes cause fluid in the lungs. He’s very weak and they are having him walk so they don’t end up giving him shots in his stomach to keep him from getting clots. So he walked by his wheelchair all the way to x-ray which is on the opposite side of the Hospital. Needless to say, he took the wheel chair back to his room.


For the next week all his blood counts (red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets) will plummet. Today the blood levels got to a critical level so he received two blood transfusions. The first bag of blood was AB- and he is AB+. They assured us that this was ok but just into the second bag of blood he started getting a rash, itching and a few symptoms that were concerning. So they gave him some Benadryl which made him light headed and tired. But it seemed to be working. Van said, “The negative blood doesn’t work for me because I’m such a positive person.” They took his levels again and they were up so they let us leave the hospital for a day and a half. We will go back to the out-patient clinic every other day until they feel comfortable his counts are going up.


The lady next door to us passed away this week and the man on the other side of us coughed all night long, and ended up in ICU this morning. After this, Van said, “I am so thankful for MY Leukemia”.


We were talking to the nurses today trying to figure out how we can reserve a certain room for our 1-2 months stay during transplant time. So this is the question of the day. “How DO you make reservations at Hotel Leukemia?”


Some wonderful and kind people have opened a donation account at Zion’s Bank in Van’s name to help with medical expenses. If interested just call or go into any Zion’s Bank and tell them you would like to make a contribution to the “Van Heder Donation Account”.