#217 Blood

Janne couldn’t stand the sight of blood. It was just a mild case of hematophobia. She couldn’t even stand looking at my wide open eyes because of the blood vessels on the white part of the eye.

Daniel was daring since young. When he had just learned to walk, he’d love to climb everywhere. He still does as an aspiring parkourist. Once, he climbed to the chair by my computer, hung on to my desk and, in his attempt to climb it, he pushed the chair away. Not knowing what to do next, he just let go. I heard a noise and found him face down on the floor with a pool of blood splashed in all directions.

I called for Janne, but thought of her fear of blood. I just told her to take him and maybe wash his nose while I would clean the room. I learned then that nose bleeds are not usually serious in children. It was all good.

Ironically, one of Janne’s favorite shows was Grey’s Anatomy, a show set in a hospital. They would be showing blood, organs, injuries all the time and she’d be watching unfazed. I asked her once how she could watch that. She just said that she knew it was fake.

Close to the end, she needed to get blood transfusions. One of the issues was that her platelets (or thrombocytes) were low. It meant that her blood wouldn’t coagulate well. She’d need blood before her chemotherapies. Talk about a shock therapy, because she ended up standing the sight of those blood bags.

The word thrombocytes was usual in our text messages. She would tell me the level and we’d knew if she’d come home that day or she needed to stay for a day or two. I would call the boys sometimes “the thrombocytes” in our text exchanges (they keep me alive after all).

I just read an exchange that happened just before Janne went. It was about blood, about her levels of hemoglobin (Ok) and thrombocytes (low), about her nose bleeding and her hematomas.

Janne told me that her doctor had suggested that, to get blood circulating better, she should try to walk. She added then, “we might do some cruising in the corridor once you come”. I just answered, “good… I can bring our cricket set”. She laughed. I couldn’t fix her blood, but, at least I made sure she kept her spirit up till the end.