Chanels

Tuesday 22 May

At two minutes before ten o'clock, Lara was declining in her hospital bed, connected to fluids and oxygen. Turned out that the one central line available for her transfusions was blocked up and needed to be debouche with a shot of Heparin. A doctor has to sign off on the use of it and that slows us down. It will be a while before the blood sample is analysed allowing for an order of the sppropriate blood products, since compatability has to be secured. That will set us back a bit. It is going to be a long day.

The blood values are not bad, given that in her case the difference between good and bad is relative. Haemoglobin stands at 8.0 (up from 7.6), but should be at 12.0 plus. With the two bags she is about to receive, it will rise by two points to 10.0. The WBC stand at 1.48, up from 1.15 last week. The neutrophils are up from 0.21 to 0.36, which is good. The platelets went down from 2 to 1 per MicroL. Not a radiant report card, but it could have been a lot worse.

Lara did not have a sound night's sleep and she woke up tired. I got up spontaneously at 4:30AM and caught her in the middle of a confused nightmare. How did you know to come find me, she wanted to know, I thought I had lost you. I always catch my lady when in distress, I reassured her. I should not have doubted you, she replied.

As I look at her now, across the room, her face is pale and drawn. Still she has oomph enough to have me read her the headlines from the Herald Trib and comment on them. What a girl. As far as her appearance is concerned, she has left little to chance: white designer stretch pants, a white long-sleeved cotton top with glitters, pink turban and glossy yellow Chanel flats (known at home as 'my little chnels'). We are both rejoicing in the prospect of having Elisabetta and Nick flying in from New York tomorrow.

At 4:30PM the last drops of red blood cells have dripped into her veins, and the obligatory rinse a little later. Then we wait for the ambulance. At 6:00 we are home again, where I rehydrate the patient. She lies back and falls asleep rightaway.