The hospital has volunteers, generally retired folks with extremely nice cars, transport patients back and forth if they need it.

My driver arrived at 10 a.m., because he had to go pick up somebody else on the way.

I got to the hematology lab about 10:50 and got my blood drawn so they could check whatever they wanted to check. Then I went down to the clinic and sat, and drank coffee, and waited. My dr. appt. was supposed to be at noon. At 1:25, he came strolling in.

So. Platelets are roughly the same as last week, which is moderately disappointing. I would have liked to have seen them go UP, but at least they didn't drop precipitously, so I guess I'm holding my own. I'm at 42,000, and optimal baseline is 50,000.

The bloodwork showed a bit of anemia, so I go back tomorrow for a blood transfusion. (The driver shows up at EIGHT. Ick.) Everything else looked OK.

But.

For the past week or 10 days, I've had terrible pain in my calf. If I sit or lie down too long, I can barely put weight on it when I get up. I shuffle like an old lady, and I've really been decompensating on walking the hallways for exercise -- most of the time I can only do one lap now, and for half of it I have to hang on to the wall for balance. So I thought, OK, I'm seeing a doctor today, I'll mention it.

He sent me for an ultrasound. I have a frickin' blood clot in my left calf. For part of the ultrasound, I had to sit on the edge of the table, where I could see the screen, and thus the pictures, and I saw it clear as day, before I ever got back upstairs for the nurse to tell me. It's not terribly huge or anything, but it's there, and now I have to give myself a shot in the stomach every day for 6 months. The nurse had me do it for real before I left so I could get used to it. It doesn't hurt, surprisingly, and I was so damn petrified they were going to put me back in the hospital that when she told me I had to give myself a shot in the stomach every day, I said, "THAT'S IT?!" Hell -- ANYTHING to avoid another hospital bed.

So, that's my mediocre to rotten news for the day. Remember the driver picked me up at 10? I got home about 5:45. One damn long day. I'm going to go lay down.

That's it for now .......

Candy