Second Phlebotomy

I just got back from my second phlebotomy this morning. The blood certainly comes out faster than it went in before, only took 30 minutes for the whole appt. My hemoglobin was at 17.1 this morning and per the Dr's orders, they drained 500 ml. After a couple of Oreo cookies and some juice, I walked out not feeling too much worse for the wear.

After thinking about the 93 units of blood that I had transfused between June 2005 and last Fall, I decided to stop by and visit the Masonic Day Hospital where I received most of that blood. This is between the Philips Wangesteen Building where I have my BMT appointments and the Fairview University Hospital where I actually had the BMT. I believe that most of the nurses that helped me over those two years were there today and I had a great visit. For any of them reading this, I again thanks you for all of your help and kindness. They were all very professional and experts in their jobs.

After having lunch with a friend, I stopped by the Express Bike Shop in St. Paul, not too far east of the University. I donated four bicycles to their Back Door program (Youth Express) and encourage you to do the same. I had nine bicycles in my garage and needed to clean them out. Some neighbor kids took a couple and my son brought his to the university campus. That leaves two, one of which I need to work on. Now I just need to clean up the rest of the stuff including two broken snow blowers. Luckily, we did not get the 26 inches of snow that they got north of here last weekend. Real Spring seems slow in coming.

Update: Just saw this on evening news after posting earlier this afternoon:
Masons give $65M to UMinn for cancer research