2/24/2011 Out of the Hospital - for now

Got out of LDS hospital yesterday late afternoon, I came home and rested. We checked in about 8:30 Tuesday morning and immediately they opened up the ports on my central line started hooking medicine to them, I have three outlets on my Central Line and for most of the day they had all three hooked up. They brought up the blood tests and confirmed that the numbers we had worked so hard to get down to appropriate levels, had started back up and the diagnosis that Dr. Peterson had made was validated.

First I got Saline with Lasex ? that helps the fluids flow where they are suppose to flow - about as fast as they can. Then they hooked me up with another one called Mesna, which is a medicine to counteract the side effects of the Cytoxan (Chemo) that was to come later, it helps the bladder to not bleed and other side effects. Then after they ran both of them for a while, they hooked up some anti nausea medicine to me on the third port to get me ready for the main event. After the anti nausea they hooked up the Cytoxan and it ran it's course, all this while I was feeling pretty good, just sitting back watching TV and talking with Patty who was great all the time. They gave me some Dex, but it was only half the dose 5 pills that I had been taking at home, this was during the afternoon and I wondered how it would effect my that night.

About 7:00 they do shift change which is pretty normal for most hospitals, the night shift we got we OK but not as personable as the day shift, about every three hours they would come and change my Saline and Lasex and every 2 - 4 hours they would do vital signs. For some reason my blood pressure was up during most of the time I was in there. I'm not a back sleeper and that along with the effects of the DEX, I didn't get much sleep Tuesday night. I finally got the night nurse to give me a little something and so I probably got about 3 hours of dozing off and on sleep, maybe a little more, but it felt like less. I ended up kicking Patty out about 8:45 so she could go back to the condo to get a little more rest than being in the chairs in the room.

Morning came and I was feeling pretty lousy, I woke up with a splitting headache that needed some help, they gave me some medicine and it seemed to help. They came into get vitals first thing and I ordered breakfast, LDS has a pretty cool thing, you order room service from a menu when you feel like it and get to pick pretty much what you want to eat, it was nice. Breakfast came and I ate it, the food was pretty good. Then an hour or so later they came back in to take vitals again and that's when the fun began.

As I sat up for the CNA to get my vitals I started feeling a little nausea, at first it wasn't too bad so I didn't think about it, then it got bad and I threw up a little in my throat, I tried to get Patty's attention but it was too late all I could do was cover my mouth and that succeeded in making it spew all over the place - not a pretty site for those in the room, I felt bad for every one there because I was shaking a no help and they all got to clean up after me. I took a quick shower while they cleaned up the room and the bed. I got back into bed and after that kept the bucket with me the rest of the day, gladly I only needed it one other time briefly. At this time the PA came in and it was doubtful that I would be coming home yesterday, but everything else stayed down for the rest of the day and they finally kicked me loose about 5:00 yesterday. I came home with more medicine, a lot of nausea medicine, some antibiotics and others that are designed to keep me OK until I get back under their care.

I don't have anything to do today, but beginning tomorrow I go to give some more labs to start monitoring my levels to make sure the Cytoxan is doing what they designed it to do. Then again a couple of days later Day 6 - (Day 1 was getting the Cytoxan) to start getting the Neupogen and other growth factors to catch the rebound of the stem cell production for the best collection. So now Patty is justified in treating me like a bubble boy, when I go out I need to wear my heppa mask and I need to wash my hands and stay more cleaned up than I normally had done in the past. I will now be a week or two of tracking blood levels, taking shots and staying pretty close to home until I'm ready to begin collection again.

Looking forward for the boys to come and visit this weekend, the unfortunate part is that we won't be able to be to outgoing with them, I'll have to kick them and Patty out of the house to go have some fun if the weather will permit.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers, they do help.