Long story
Well,
here is the LONG story of my hospital visit this week. It's been a crazy 5
days, so this might take a while.
A couple of caveats before I start - remember that I have chemo brain, and
won't always remember the details. And, remember that I was pretty drugged up
for the first couple of days of my hospital stay. Details might be sketchy, and
might be revised as Mom and Dad read through this and tell me what a big
dumbass I am. Just thought I would let you know.... :-)
Tuesday, I started round 5 of my chemo. All seemed to be going well - the side
effects are of course getting worse as time goes on, b/c the treatments and
meds are cumulative. The nurses did say that my white blood counts were low,
and I am going to have to start up on Neulasta, which will boost my body's
production of white blood cells. Fun. Tuesday night, I was exhausted. I mean, I
went to be at 6:30 pm. And, didn't wake up until 8am the next morning. Mom and
Dad came in to check on me, and apparently I was burning up. Dad had noticed
that I was warm on Tuesday night, but we attributed it to the chemo. Wednesday,
however, I was really hot, and I was lethargic. I didn't even have the energy
to take a shower - Mom had to bathe me. (For those of you who know me, I didn't
even put makeup or jewelry on - that's how bad I was feeling!) Dad and I
headed to the drs office for day two of this round of treatment, and as I
walked into the office, everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I tried to
reassure them that I was fine - but, alas, I wasn't. When they called me into
the chemo room, they took my temp and vitals - I had a 99.6 temp and my BP was
low - think 80/50. Not good. They took me back to a room to examine me further,
and my temp spiked - to 101.9. The dr looked me in the eye and said
"You're going to the hospital." Okeee-dokeee.
So, here's a first for Michelle. In all my life, I have never ridden as a
passenger in an ambulance. Until Wednesday. They called out the whole crew - I
had a fire truck (yellow - woo!), a rescue truck, and an ambulance. And, there
had to have been 25 people there to take care of me. The funny part - I was
less than a half-mile from the hospital. You can literally see it from the
parking lot of the doctor's office. But, I had to go the way the dr said, so
off I go for my short-distance ride to the hospital.
And, into the ER. Dad had come with me in the ambulance, and Levi, Mom, and my
poor sister-in-law Ruth (who was visiting from WI) were driving in from the
house. The drs and nurses there were great. They were obviously worried, and
they started administering the IV antibiotics. Well, because I can't do things
the easy way, I had a reaction to the drugs they gave me. I had been sleeping
on the oh-so-comfy ER hospital bed, and woke up with this intense itching on my
scalp. All over my scalp. Like, I was digging and drawing blood, the itching
was that bad. And, Mom and Dad said my upper torso and head were bright, cherry
red. Great. We called the nurses, and they slowed the IV drip and administered
Benadryl. By the way, Benadryl is like the cure-all drug for any reaction. It's
awesome. And, it makes you sleepy when they give it to you via IV. A nice side
effect when you aren't feeling well.
Anyways, they admitted me that evening, and started the blood work. They took
what seemed to be a TON of blood, but the tech (whose name I don't remember,
but was very nice, and cute to boot!) said it was only a few tablespoons. The
blood work was mainly to check my levels of everything, and to see if I had a
blood infection. They took it from two different injection sites, and put some
of the blood into these liquor-looking bottles (I remember joking that they
were whiskey and vodka) - apparently, these bottles contain particular food for
a certain bacteria - if the bacteria grows in these circumstances, you are
positive for this infection. Luckily, after three days of waiting, I found out
that wasn't the case. And, I get ahead of myself.
So, they admitted me to the hospital on Wednesday night. At this point, we are
told that there are a couple of potential reasons for my issues. Bladder/UTI
infection (which was the leading contender until Friday), tumor fever (this is
where a tumor gets broken up by the chemo, and your body is attacking the tumor
cells, causing a heightened fever), a viral infection, or a blood infection.
Woo.
Thursday, I really don't remember too much,expect sleeping. They took more
blood, administered more antibiotics (different ones, this time, to avoid a
recurrence of the reaction I had the day before), and basically monitored my
vitals, which hadn't yet stabilized.
Oh - Thursday early morning, they took me for an iodine contrast CT scan of my
chest, to determine if I had a pulmonary embolism (yikes). Luckily, I didn't.
They also took me in for an X-Ray of my port, because they couldn't access it,
and couldn't get anything into or out of it. Generally, the port is great
because they poke you once, and boom - they can pull blood from there, they can
administer meds and chemo, etc. Great, since I HATE being poked with a needle.
I mean, I would rather be run over by a car. So, in the ER on Wednesday, the ER
nurse was having trouble getting blood from the port. What that meant for me
was that, in addition to the 3 or 4 needle pokes I had already received, they
were going to re-access my port, which means pulling the current needle and
putting a new one in. Well, that didn't work. And, the sadistic nurse didn't
use any numbing solution (which they nurses usually do). So, they had to pull
all of my blood work via needle. I was not impressed.
Okay, so Thursday morning, they take me in for an X-Ray of my port - they were
going to inject a radioactive something-or-other in it, to see where the flow
stopped. Unfortunately, they weren't even able to get the injection in there.
So, the nurse had to re-access the port again. (She used numbing solution, bless
her heart.) But, alas, nothing worked. The solution they came up with was to
use what they called cath-flow, which meant using a medication to break up what
they assumed was a build-up of (hopefully) biodegradable material (blood
platelets, mineral deposits from the meds, etc.). Unfortunately, after 7 hours,
this didn't work. Not even a little bit. Their solution - let's access the port
again. At this point, I put my foot down. I was up to over 12 needle pokes by
then, and wasn't impressed with the thought of them trying for 13. They had
already had to redo my IV that day, since the first once failed. And, my port
area was pretty tender - all of the fussing and poking and prodding to try to
get it to work had bruised the skin, and the thought of them poking me again
had me furious. Obviously, the damn thing wasn't working. I told the nurse that
they weren't going to do this, and if it wasn't working, let's get the damn
thing out. She insisted that it would work, and I asked her - if something in
your car isn't working, and you try three times to fix this part, and each
time, it doesn't work, wouldn't you replace it?!?! Well, yes. Well then, let's
replace this part. I can't handle going through the waiting anymore. So, the
drs agreed, and that leads me into Friday.
Friday, I remember feeling really defeated. No one had any answers about my
infection or the cause. No one could tell me what was wrong with me. All they
kept doing was coming in, taking my vitals - which weren't great, taking more
blood, poking me with needles, and feeding me gross hospital food (actually, it
wasn't too bad). I was depressed. No doubt. I was exhausted, feeling like this
wasn't a fight I could take on. I actually considered telling the doctors to
forget the chemo, just fix this, take the port out, and I will deal with
whatever happens later. I was so tired, and tired of not having any answers.
Luckily, Levi kicked my butt, woke me up to reality, and we talked for a long
time about what needs to happen to get to the other side of this battle. Then,
as if Mother Nature hadn't already been cruel enough, I got my period.
REALLY?!?! Somehow, I felt like fate was playing some sort of mean joke. I
hadn't had it in months, and figured that, as one of the side effects of chemo,
I was okay with going into early menopause. Nope. Had to deal with that, too.
(And, of course, this didn't help my mental state any.)
Anyways, Friday afternoon, they sent me down to radiology to remove my port.
Thank goodness. Once, this happened, all of my vitals started to stabilize, my
infection seemed to disappear, and I started to feel better. Apparently, my
port was infected somehow (we will never know truly how this happened), and
this is what wreaked all the havoc on my body. Saturday, my stats were stable
all day and both my oncologist and my infectious diseases doctor (wow, I was
pretty freaked out when I found out that I was involved with infectious
diseases) both said I was okay to be released, but I had to be released by my
internal meds dr at the hospital. They were still administering the antibiotics
(orally this time, since the second IV ALSO failed), and wanted to monitor me
for a bit longer.
Sunday, I am ready to go home. I sat there as patiently as I could (which
wasn't very patiently, I admit), waiting for the dr. Wouldn't you think a dr
would do rounds in the morning? Nope - she didn't get there until 5 pm. Dad
came up to the hospital to wait with me, since we all assumed that the dr would
be there earlier rather than later, and I would be out before lunch. Instead,
dinner was being delivered as I was allowed to finally escape. We sat in the
room all day long, waiting for that dr. We watched about 6 episodes of
MythBusters on the Discovery Channel, and just paced. ARGH! Very frustrating.
But, we finally got to go home.
And, then I walked in the door to find out that the washing machine had flooded
the laundry room, the front hallway, my parent's bedroom, their closet, the
linen closet, and part of the kitchen. Mom and Levi and the kids had spent the
better part of the day cleaning the house, getting it all nice and pretty for my
homecoming. And then, that happened. Luckily, they were home and caught it, and
the damage is minimal. Loss of life was contained mainly to some cardboard
boxes, but the rug in the hallway and the wood flooring in my parents room was
soaked. As I sit here, we are still working to dry the house out. There are all
kinds of fans running, working to dry out the floors. It could have been a ton
worse, but it was just another thing to happen this week.
So, I spent 5 days in the hospital this past week, and am finally home. I spoke
with my oncologist about what kind of effect this would have on my prognosis
for curability from the cancer. He told me to calm down - this kind of
infection happens, and isn't uncommon. As far as the chemo, we will get another
port put in next week sometime, and start chemo after that. This will have no
bearing on my capability to recover from colon cancer, and I will start back up
with round 6 of chemo, which is my halfway point. Yeah!
The bad news - I was in the hospital. The good news - I was where I needed to
be to be taken care of properly. We found it early enough to get it out, and to
recover well. I will be returning to work tomorrow, since Dr. Rakkar was VERY
adamant about me returning to a normal schedule as soon as possible.
I think that's it. I might add more later, as things come back to me. Overall,
it was quite an experience. I don't hope to have it happen again, but it's a
good lesson. If you are undergoing chemo, and think you have a fever, TAKE YOUR
TEMP! Then, call the dr. This is very important.
Oh - final needle poke count, when all was said and done? Between 16 and 18.
Are you freaking kidding me??!
Comments:
You
are too freakin' funny! Welcome home babe! I was so relieved to hear it was the
port when Mom wrote last week. Hopefully you're settled into somewhat of the
routing again. Call the maids to help clean up the mess - I can't believe that
happened! Argh! Never a dull moment, huh? Anyhoo, so thankful you're back home
safe and sound! Love you!!!
August
20, 2008 at 8:17 AM
Later:
Well, I
figured that I will post two versions - the short story, and the long story. If
you are intrigued enough by the short version, you can take the time to read
the long version.
And what story, you might be asking yourself, would that be? Why, that would be
my hospital visit this week.
First things first - I am okay, home and happy.
Basically, I started chemo last Tuesday (remember, each round of chemo is a
three day ordeal), and was kicked down pretty good by the side effects. I was
exhausted almost immediately, and started to have a bit of a fever. By
Wednesday, the fever had spiked, and when I went into the oncologist's office
for day two, they sent me to the ER in an ambulance. My BP was really low, my
temp really high, and I was lethargic. At the ER, they determined that I had
some sort of an infection, and admitted me. After a couple of days of
antibiotics, I was feeling better, but stil lnot great. They powers-that-be
determined that I had an infection in my port (which is the unit they installed
in my chest, just under the skin, with a catheter into a vein so that they can
administer the chemo and get blood without having to go through a traditional
IV each time), and they removed that on Friday afternoon. Once that was out, I
started to feel MUCH better. I spent yesterday pacing the hospital floor
waiting for a doctor to show up to release me.
So, I am feeling better, and all is well. I have a follow-up appt with my
oncologist this week to talk about getting another port put in, starting chemo
back up, etc. The good news is that this won't have any effect on my long-term
prognosis for my cancer, and I won't have to re-do round 5 of chemo (since I
missed a day). The doctor that I met with in the hospital seemed to feel that
this isn't an uncommon thing, and that there was nothing really to worry about.
Apparently, this happens.
There you go - the short version. Have I satisfied your curiosity? If not,
check the next post - it's going to be the long version of the story. And, boy,
some of the things that happened over the past 5 days.....well, you'll just
have to read. :-)
Aren't I tricky???
