Today they had to draw more blood than what a finger poke would be able to give, since they expected plates would be low and not enough blood amount would be hard for lab to get a value. So Lucas had his rare occasion of arm poke. The nurse who drew the lab was amazing -- she is the one and only one who can do such things. I joked with her that she can never take sick leaves or be on vacation! Still, Lucas cried hard and kept saying "take it out!". I later asked him whether arm poke is more painful than port access (he sometimes get port access without numbing cream). He told me he preferred port access since Cindy (the child life lady with an iPad full of games) would be there for port access. :) We anticipate more frequent arm pokes since we would like to monitor his liver functions more closely in-between port access. I will make sure Cindy would be there for the next arm poke so he could associate arm poke with some not-too-awful memories.
So the plates came back as 8 and Lucas got the chest poke for port access half hour after the arm poke. We got there at 8:30 and left after 1pm. We need to go back Wednesday again since his hemoglobin is 8.2 today but I didn't feel like he needed transfusion right away as he is still pretty active and energetic. His WBC is 1.3 and ANC 754. Chemo hold is still in action. We probably would see numbers get lower before they get higher. I'm hoping we have caught this early enough that he wouldn't be wiped out.
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