Blood Transfusions

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msscarlett301
msscarlett301 Member Posts: 3
edited March 2014 in Head and Neck Cancer #1
My mother was diagnosed a few months ago with Stage IVa throat cancer. Since then she has undergone 33 rad treatments and only 3 cisplastin instead of 6 due to her blood levels dropping. She was admittfed on wednesday for the 3rd time due to dehydration. Her body is rejecting any form of nourishment regardless of what nausea medication they put her on. Today they ordered 2 units of blood for her and are currently giving them to her. Have any of you had similar experiences?

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  • Fire34
    Fire34 Member Posts: 365
    #2
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    Blood Transfusions ?
    Scarlett
    I had stage IVa unknown primary also. I am coming up on 12 months post. I had seven transfusions during my 18 week course of treatment. My red count was always low and druing treatment it was protocol to give blood when counts reached a certain level.
    Does your mom have a PEG tube. Mine was a life saver. Is she having trouble swallowing? I understand that was probably a stupid question but some here have not had any trouble.
    When you say rejecting, just vomiting or reaction type rejecting? What does her med/onc say to this? I would look into the PEG and maybe even demand it as like I mentioned it was my only form of nutrition for about 10 weeks.
    Best Wishes & Prayers for your mom and her treatment.
    Dave
  • msscarlett301
    msscarlett301 Member Posts: 3
    #3
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    Fire34 said:

    Blood Transfusions ?
    Scarlett
    I had stage IVa unknown primary also. I am coming up on 12 months post. I had seven transfusions during my 18 week course of treatment. My red count was always low and druing treatment it was protocol to give blood when counts reached a certain level.
    Does your mom have a PEG tube. Mine was a life saver. Is she having trouble swallowing? I understand that was probably a stupid question but some here have not had any trouble.
    When you say rejecting, just vomiting or reaction type rejecting? What does her med/onc say to this? I would look into the PEG and maybe even demand it as like I mentioned it was my only form of nutrition for about 10 weeks.
    Best Wishes & Prayers for your mom and her treatment.
    Dave

    Due to the fact she had no
    Due to the fact she had no insurance the diagnosis and treatment were a very long time in coming. She was so dehydrated when we finally found a doctor who would treat here that the peg tube went in before she ever started treatment. We have tried boost/ensure and jevita now. She just keeps vomiting everything. Thank you for a better explanation, i had never heard of giving blood transfusions and i was very confused. I have been reading the discussion on here since september and they have gone a long way in helping me to understand and have given great insight on how to help here where i can.

    She is 2 weeks out from treatments and we keep praying the side effects will lessen and i hope she is home soon.
  • JUDYV5
    JUDYV5 Member Posts: 392
    #4
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    Had problems keeping things down
    I had to drip food into my tube very slowly or I would throw up. It would take over an hour to eat one can. I didn't feel nausea, I would just throw everything up unless it went in very slow. I had hydration 3 every three days during treatment. I have a friend with a different type of cancer who told me that she would feel incrediable after getting blood.
    Hopefully it will perk your Mom up also.
  • Scambuster
    Scambuster Member Posts: 973
    #5
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    msscarlett301 said:

    Due to the fact she had no
    Due to the fact she had no insurance the diagnosis and treatment were a very long time in coming. She was so dehydrated when we finally found a doctor who would treat here that the peg tube went in before she ever started treatment. We have tried boost/ensure and jevita now. She just keeps vomiting everything. Thank you for a better explanation, i had never heard of giving blood transfusions and i was very confused. I have been reading the discussion on here since september and they have gone a long way in helping me to understand and have given great insight on how to help here where i can.

    She is 2 weeks out from treatments and we keep praying the side effects will lessen and i hope she is home soon.

    Vege Based PEG Foods
    Hi Scarlett,

    Slightly different situation though I became very ill during Chemo rads. Had a PEG installed but couldn't tolerate any of the ensures/boost etc. I lost 50lbs and I'm not big. They installed a PICC line (for IV Food) but that failed and nearly killed me. I searched for and found a Vegetable based Nutrition Shake and that fixed my food problems. There are few on the market and others here have used different ones but I found and used Vitashake made by Sunrider. You can find it online. It is a MLM Co. but an excellent product. I recall it costs about $2.18 per satchel, come in boxes of 10. I mixed mine in one of the nut milks or Rice milk (Hazelnut, Almond, Oat). I advise to avoid cows milk.

    I mixed it in a shaker bottle and poured into the PEG Gravity cup. About 200-250ml of the Rice Milk and 1 Vitashake satchel gives you about 400 Calories, so 3-5 per day or as many as she can take. You may want to start with 1/2 measures - keep the feeds very small to start. It is packed full of vital nutrition. My Doctors all scoffed at the 'new' product but after a few days seeing my dramatic stabilization and improvement, they soon shut up.

    Hope she gets through the rough patch soon.

    Scam
  • Pam M
    Pam M Member Posts: 2,196
    #6
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    I had no probs with keeping
    I had no probs with keeping my nutrition down, Ms Scarlett, but I used to correspond with a lady on another site who did. She regularly had to get IV fluids, had two different kinds of feeding tubes put in, and eventually even had to be given blood. She said she was amazed at how much better she felt very soon after getting the blood. Hope the same goes for your mom.

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