November 9, 2024
Do you know what they don’t cover in patient chemo education? ANY OF THIS! It did not get better this morning after I had been awake for nearly 28 hours. Sure it was the stress and anxiety of all of this serious stuff plus hormonal stuff and just not wanting to be here. Also, I was pretty sure I was starving to death. Patients get seen to as they should. The caretaker, whose presence is absolutely necessary in the hospital room due to the vast knowledge of all things David Gassett’s cancer, must fend for herself. It is scary when new things happen AND you don’t understand why AND you have 1000 and 7 questions building in your head AND you don’t know the doctor on the floor AND we were both exhausted AND your person isn’t able to help you find your way. We made the decision for me to go next door to the Holiday Inn Express and get a room to shower and take a few minutes away from the room. I couldn’t make that happen until after check in at 3. But I did and felt guilty for leaving. I feeI guilty for a lot of things while also knowing the importance of taking a minute or two for yourself and I definitely was not myself and was not helping him by breaking down every other half hour. I grabbed fast food lunch-dinner and checked in. I texted David and said I was closing my eyes for 45 minutes and would shower then be along. Stuck to that only because I had a nightmare at 4:30 in the afternoon. Otherwise, I would still be sleeping there next January like a hibernating bear. During the time I was gone, he was taken down for a CT scan of his torso area. The floor doctor consulted with an infectious disease doctor both of which had stopped by and talked to us earlier in the day. I shared all of the printed info I had regarding the chemo meds and all labs, scans, etc from last week’s hospital visit. He took pictures of it all and said he wanted to review it. He was appreciative of the info. They wanted to rule out any possible infection that may be able to see with a scan. We liked both doctors and both seemed determined to make sure if there was infection lurking, they would find it. We all noted some swelling that had started in David’s legs and feet and mid section. Once David was back in the room, it was back on the fluids he had since Friday evening and more antibiotics. They gave him a blood thinner shot in his belly as a regular hospital precaution. Then more beep beep beep of the IV machines with their little scrolling “occluded – patient side” messages and the “infusion complete” messages when they really were not complete. The machine was so loud when one of these alarms went off and the nurse had to be called every time. I quickly learned how to fix the annoying occlusion and at an even more impressive speed, learned how to turn down the volume of the damn things. If I could have stopped the clicking and whirring one of them was doing while we tried to sleep tonight, I would have been a hero of an Iron Bat Super Man proportion. I need a shirt that says Occluded-Patient Side. People who don’t have hospital stay experience may not get it but I know nurses will. Geez Louise with those IVs.
