One week after Round 1 Vidaza

[maueenh]

Well we went to see the doc yesterday after several days of procrit and neupogen and my father had to be tx for 3 pints. His platelets have plummeted from 67 just before he began Vidaza to 32 yesterday WB 1.6, RBC 2.2, HGB 7.3,HCT 21.2. I know that people have said that #s drop but do they drop this much. They took him off the coumadin and will be giving him daily neupogen for the next few days. When he has these tx they admit him overnight. Is this usually the case. They said each bag takes 3 hours.

Maureen

[patti]

Hi Maureen,

It is very normal for counts to drop this much with Vidaza. It will take some time for them to come back, but they will.

Every place transfuses differently. Mom goes to an outpatient infusion clinic which she far prefers over the hospital. Where she goes it usually takes 2hrs per pint of blood. It doesn’t surprise me it would take 3hrs at the hospital. Nurses are usually too busy to worry (or care) about how fast the blood is dripping. I’ve just learned to turn mom’s up to the right speed without the nurses. When they come to check the drip rate I just tell them that I already increased it. But I had one of the nurses show me how to do it before I tried it!

Patti

[maueenh]

His platelets went from 32 yesterday to 20 this morning so my mom just called and said they were transfusing him with 2 bags of platelets before releasing him from the hospital. I’m glad to hear that this is normal and we will look into going elsewhere for future tx. Thanks again.
Maureen

[lynette]

Hi!
As a nurse, I know that we can be very busy. However, transfusing a patient is one of the most regulated procedures in the hospital. Blood typically takes 2-4 hours for infusion(1 unit of PRBCs). The blood should not infuse faster that the MD orders. Too fast may cause fluid overload in the elderly. Although we(as family members) want to see the blood pour in– as to help our loved ones, it is not a good idea. Two hours is the absolute minimum!! Three or four hours means that the staff is being extra cautious, perhaps because of age. However, blood should never hang more 4 hours.
Good luck,
Lynette

[maueenh]

Thanks Lynette. My Dad does have atrial fib so I would assume the doc has recommended a slower tx. One of the problems we have run into is the hospital does not have its own blood bank and we have had to wait to get the blood. Thanks for the clarification.

Maureen

[patti]

Hi Lynette,

You’re not kidding when you say how regulated transfusions are! This week when mom was getting transfused the nurse told me they changed the procedure for drops per minute. Their staff now has to calculate how many cc’s are in the bag and divide by some mysterious number they didn’t tell me to determine how fast they should infuse the blood. It did slow things down greatly! It normally takes 2hrs 5 minutes for a bag and mom’s first bag took 3hrs 20min! They said it had more cc’s in it then the others did. Good grief. Isn’t 40 drops a second slow enough?

Thanks for the info. Always helpful to have a nurse on board.

Patti

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