Tuesday night:
My dad hasn't been feeling well the past couple of weeks...pretty much just tired and lethargic. He finally went to the doctor yesterday and they admitted him to the hospital. He has some sort of mass in his abdomen (you can feel it when you touch his stomach) and his blood count is like 7 and they said it should be around 14, so they gave him a blood transfusion. They're trying to figure out how he's losing his blood - his first stool sample came back negative for blood. They did a chest xray (not sure why) and a cat scan to check out the mass. They also drew some blood to test his electrolytes. He's a pretty healthy guy, so this is kinda strange stuff for him.
Wednesday night:
Today we learned that Dad's blood count is up to 29 after the transfusion (which is awesome). The mass in his abdomen is his spleen!!! It is grossly enlarged and is in danger of rupturing. He sees the hemotologist early tomorrow morning, and they will most likely recommend that his spleen be removed. Alternatively, they could treat the enlargement with steroids to get it back to normal size, but his doc seemed to think surgery will be in order. We'll see what the specialist says tomorrow.
OK, I hope I get this right....the reason he lost so much blood: the spleen's major function is to remove spent red blood cells from the body's bloodstream. When the spleen is enlarged, its normal function accelerates and it begins to automatically remove cells that may still be normal in function. Hence the loss of blood.
Anyway - we are so relieved it is nothing worse. I'll give another update tomorrow night.
Side note. Being at the hospital doing nothing all day is so exhausting!!
My dad hasn't been feeling well the past couple of weeks...pretty much just tired and lethargic. He finally went to the doctor yesterday and they admitted him to the hospital. He has some sort of mass in his abdomen (you can feel it when you touch his stomach) and his blood count is like 7 and they said it should be around 14, so they gave him a blood transfusion. They're trying to figure out how he's losing his blood - his first stool sample came back negative for blood. They did a chest xray (not sure why) and a cat scan to check out the mass. They also drew some blood to test his electrolytes. He's a pretty healthy guy, so this is kinda strange stuff for him.
Wednesday night:
Today we learned that Dad's blood count is up to 29 after the transfusion (which is awesome). The mass in his abdomen is his spleen!!! It is grossly enlarged and is in danger of rupturing. He sees the hemotologist early tomorrow morning, and they will most likely recommend that his spleen be removed. Alternatively, they could treat the enlargement with steroids to get it back to normal size, but his doc seemed to think surgery will be in order. We'll see what the specialist says tomorrow.
OK, I hope I get this right....the reason he lost so much blood: the spleen's major function is to remove spent red blood cells from the body's bloodstream. When the spleen is enlarged, its normal function accelerates and it begins to automatically remove cells that may still be normal in function. Hence the loss of blood.
Anyway - we are so relieved it is nothing worse. I'll give another update tomorrow night.
Side note. Being at the hospital doing nothing all day is so exhausting!!
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