I've been noticing more bruising and nosebleeds than usual, and so after watching for a week and hoping that they would go away on their own, I finally went to the hospital yesterday and got a CBC. Platelets are at 19, which is quite a drop from the 200+ that I had about a month ago. That's how it goes sometimes I guess. I'm back on my 4-day high dose Dexamethasone treatment. I think this time around, I'm going to try to record my symptoms so that I have a record of what happens. Since I sometimes go months between treatments (Hooray!), it's easy to forget.
Day #1:
Morning:
Having taken the medicine first thing this morning, along with a Prilosec for heartburn, I'm feeling a a little tired and kind of spacy. Nothing too detrimental, but just a little off. I can also feel myself being slightly less patient with people, co-workers that stop by my office with perfectly reasonable requests, cars that are turning at times that are certainly legal, but inconvenient for me. By the afternoon, I'm starting to get a hoarse voice, nothing too extreme, just kind of like I have a frog there or something. I'm also getting more emotional, prone to tear up at bit at things that ordinarily don't bother me.
Late Morning/Early Afternoon:
I had previously scheduled a dentist appointment today for my 6-month check-up. While there, I told the hygienist and dentist about my platelet count, as they asked me about changes to my medical history. The hygienist later remarked that as she was cleaning my teeth and working on my gums, she did notice that they bled a bit, but that the bleeding stopped right away. As I turned out, I needed a small filling done, and so we took care of it then as well. My dentist also remarked that as he was working on the filling, there was some bleeding in my gums, but that it stopped right away as well. Since I'm not in the habit of asking about whether or not my gums are bleeding during these check-ups, I don't know if that's normal for me or not, so this information may not exactly be helpful, but I still find it interesting.
Also, I called my Family Practitioner brother Mark (my hematologist is out of town until Monday) and asked him about getting a flu shot. I was planning to get one at the "Say Boo to the Flu" clinic in conjunction with Parent Teacher Conferences on Thursday, but where my immunity is already compromised from the steroids, I'm not all that sure a flu shot is a good idea right now. Mark agreed, saying that just to be safe, I should probably wait until I've been off steroids for a week or so before I get the shot.
Evening:
It's the end of the day, and I've definitely felt worse today than I generally do on day one. Wondering about that, I had Eric lend me his blood checker (my husband is a life-long Type 1 diabetic), and I found that my blood sugar was at 262, pretty high for a non-diabetic, but I think that helps to explain why I've been so achy and tired today. I called my dad (also a family practitioner, but he retired from practice a few years ago), and he recommended that I re-test in the morning. Blood sugar issues are a common problem with steroids, but it's one I haven't endured too much in my journey until now.
I met with our Visiting Teacher Coordinator today to go over the monthly visiting teaching and make any changes due to move-ins and move-outs, etc. I was worried about it, because I haven't felt myself, and making those changes can be puzzling and require quite a bit of thought. I expressed as much to Donna (the VT Coordinator), and before we started, she offered a very heartfelt and sincere prayer, asking the Lord to help us both, but especially me, to be able to think clearly, and make the changes in assignments in a way that will line up with His will for these sisters. Within about 10 minutes of the prayer, I was feeling much better, and able to concentrate significantly more. We entered the reports, made the changes necessary, and I felt at peace about what we decided. It feels like a little miracle to me. I'm so grateful for Donna's faith and friendship, and I'm grateful as always to have help from above through this journey.
It's been a few hours since that little miracle, and now I'm fuzzy again and tired. Time for bed.
