White as a Sheet

Day 2 of photo did not go well - like at all.  Tweedle Dumb kept telling us "her rules" and she kept explaining it as if I was a Rocket Scientist.  They were in an uproar about his H&H (hemoglobin & hematocrit) levels and kept complaining that they can't do it.  They couldn't tell me his levels, they couldn't tell me why, and all the lady could do was pace back in forth in this tiny hell hole of a room!  So I sent her away - I told her she had to go complain to someone who can do something.  By this point, Graham's anxiety was through the roof and one of our favorite day nurses came running in with Xanax and had his Morphine prepped and ready just in case.

When T.Dumb came back, she tried again to explain things to me way over my head.  I finally said, "Look, I hang out with 8 year olds all day, that means I'm as smart as an 8 year old (sorry to all the 8 year olds reading this right now).  So PLEASE explain this to me in as crude of laymen's terms you got."  And so she did!  H&H levels...Baylor has always gone off of the hemoglobin level; 7.2 or lower is a no go and he gets a transfusion below 7.  However, Carter's Bloodcare goes off of the hematocrit level; and Graham was at a 28 (no flipping clue what that meant at the time) and it was too low.  I asked what his hemoglobin level was and IT WAS 6.2!!!!  No wonder the man was as pale as the sheet he was sleeping on!  HE HAD NO BLOOD IN HIM!  So they packed up and the goobers left the building and Graham was ordered 2L of blood- transfusion style, not vampire.

Now, why did photo effect him like this when he has been doing this treatment, back to back, since last September?  Baylor has the "newer" machine that pulls a pint out, separates the cells, hits them with a UV light, mixes them back, and send them back to Graham.  This travel "older" machine is more of a cycle.  So instead of just pulling a pint out, his blood is constantly being cycled in and out of his body, who's to say how much is gone, how much has returned, or how much was left behind at any given moment.  Though its effectiveness is about the same, the pressure it puts on the body is more severe.  Graham will now have photo every 2 weeks, every other day, just so his body has time to recuperate and he does not become so anemic again.