Well, as I mentioned in the last post - I rolled out of bed early (by some people's standards) - in the morning with both of my muscles refusing to work very well and with some extreme soreness. Grandma Bone, one of the many incredible people in our lives, came over to sit house until Courtnie woke up and Kimmie and I went to check in at the hospital.
All went smoothly but it is still hurry up and wait - thank goodness I was taught that lesson so long ago thanks to the U.S. Army and Department of Defense. The oncology "floor" is actually the surgery and oncology floor with a mix of patients here for those type of things. Checking in this morning were two other chemotherapy patients - one a 21 year old with a much more difficult road ahead of him. The majority of the floor seems to have people who are going to, of have undergone, some serious surgeries. There is one other cancer patient that has been battling their cancer for a year (the majority spent here in the hospital) this current stay has been 4 weeks now - a very nice couple with kids that stay every now and then overnight at the hospital, and they play a mean poker game.
Once we were settled in the room they went about the business of making a pin cushion out of me trying to find a good place to have an IV line. That was real fun (sarcasm). Finally they called the Surgery Nurse who coincidentally was the one who put my IV in yesterday for the port surgery and she stopped the lets hurt Gary game and got an IV going. Thankfully that IV line stays until it is removed on my discharge. They then proceeded to load me up with several "pre-meds" - one called Mesna, which helps protect my bladder from the chemo drugs (you pee out 5 to 20% of the chemo drugs at full strength; another IV bag had sodium chloride which serves mainly to hydrate me and keeps the IV lines opened up; and another IV bag had a drug to fight nausea. That all goes to the IV in my arm.
While they did the above, the dressing on my port was removed and we all got to see it for the first time. Dr. Lee, who came by to check on me looked at it and said it looked good, the gaggle of nurses made it "surgical clean" and then place an IV line in the port and secured that to my now less hairy chest. Then they made sure that it had good blood flow and then they pushed through some saline to make sure that everything was plumbed correctly. Then, because I had been home since the X-ray they took of it yesterday after the surgery, they brought the radiology technician in to X-ray me again to ensure that everything was where it should be. It is.
At 11:30 AM I began my first dose of Cytoxan. This takes 3 hours to put in so I just hang out, walk around with the pump that puts the drug in, check e-mail, etc. It was uneventful as Dr. Lee said it would likely be.
As I write this I am going to get some shut eye before they wake me up for round 2 for today, I'll get hit with chemo every 12 hours until Friday. That wake up call comes at 11:00 PM and will have me up to around 3 AM. Then I will try to sleep again into the morning.
That's about it for today. The food has been fine - shared French Toast, eggs, bacon, cream of wheat, coffee, juice with Kimmie in the morning; had Caesar Salad, and pepperoni pizza for lunch - saving the chocolate cake for Kimmie's much anticipated visit with Courtnie in the evening; and had salmon, rice, red potatoes, cheesecake for dinner.
The most awesome part of this day was my evening visit with Kim and CJ - they brought me all kinds of snacks and really hooked me up for my stay. I have the best wife and daughter ever!
Here's me and Daddy's little girl, I'm eating dinner and CJ is testing my snacks to make sure they are acceptable for Daddy. In the foreground is the aforementioned chocolate cake for Kimmie - oh wait... it's gone. (Photographer must have ate it!)
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