Doug Nordland Doug and his journey

It all began March 30th. Doug was not feeling the best a couple days before, but on this particular day he was disorientated, unsteady, and started to throw up. My sister-in-law and I managed to get him in the car and to Sanford ER. They took him back to a room almost immediately and drew blood. They pushed 2 bags of fluid in him quickly because he was extremely dehydrated.  Blood work came back no infection, but his hemoglobin was 5( men should have a hemoglobin of 12-17) they pumped 2 bags of blood into Doug in 20 minutes. Red blood count was 30,000 and falling and white blood count was 1.8 and falling. The ER doctor said his body had stopped making blood, and they needed to get it in as fast as possible.  They admitted him into the ICU and ran more tests. Talking with Dr after Dr, they decided to transfer to the downtown location where he would be closer to hematology. From that point he received several more bags of blood as well as red blood platelets. The news was not good. Doug was diagnosed April 2 with  MDS cancer of the blood. If that wasn’t enough of a blow, they said bone marrow transplant was not an option giving the fact he would probably not make it through it because of the condition of his heart. They would start Doug on chemo but survival for Doug  was only 12-15 months.  Talk about a kick to the stomach. They sent him home and he would go in every other day to have blood levels checked. He was doing well after the first week, so he decided to drive himself in the following day which takes us to April 12. Doug was getting some water in the lobby and fell. He fell and broke his ankle. He would need surgery to fix it and put screws and plate in and won’t be able to be weight baring for 10 weeks....seriously???? Surgery went well and he came home the next day. Now he has a nurse that comes in and checks on him and draws labs. April 23 he began his first round of infusion for chemo. He is 5 days on 23 days off. He seemed to tolerate it fairly well.  April 25 Doug called the eye doctor because he could not see very well, Dr fit him in right away and found that Doug’s capillaries in his eyes were breaking causing his retinas to swell. They put shots in both eyes to take the swelling down. It went well. That day he had to go by ambulance to the hospital as he was dehydrated and needed blood and platelets. He is now getting ready to start his second round of chemo tomorrow. I will update more  later.