November 11, 2024
Looking out through the glass separating us from our home planet, there is much unusual life on this planetary dimension called hospital. Beings seem to come and go freely while we two continue to be mired in a space time continuum of tests and antibiotics and repeating information to different doctors over and over.
After another sleepless night, due to blood work and vitals and new IV bags, radiology arrived for David at 7am to take him for a kidney sonogram we had no idea had been ordered. It was also a surprise to night nurse who was in the process of relinquishing the conn to day nurse. Today in our quest to find some reason to keep the prisoners here, we looked for kidney stones due to some slight hydronephrosis in the left kidney that was noted in the scan Saturday. No stone. No infection. He still had some swelling in his feet that is better than yesterday. Leaving off the fluids and adding back his BP medication that is also a diuretic seems to have helped some. We have seen so many people today because apparently everyone works on Mondays. We saw the hospitalist we saw all weekend around 9:30 and he had already reached out to Dr. B’s office asking for someone to stop by. I asked if we could leave today and he indicated he was inclined to think so but wanted to check the sonogram results that had not come back at the time. WBC is still at 1500 and Hemoglobin is now up to 9.2. Back to where it was last Saturday and where it sort of hovers normally. I brought my things over from the hotel last night and called to check out this morning in anticipation of going home today. We had some visits from the cancer resources people here at Piedmont and they offer free wellness classes like Yoga and Tai Chi for patients and their spouses. We also had a visit from other wellness staff explaining that they offer feet, leg, neck and head massages for Piedmont patients and we thought that was a really nice service to offer patients and a nice way to make someone feel a bit better. David was unable to partake since he had some edema. David napped a good bit this afternoon, and I talked to the housekeeper about the mops they use and how they don’t work as well as the disposable ones they used to have, and I talked to the guy that picks up the sharps containers and how he goes to every room and every floor and then starts all over again and how he is 68 and goes to the gym regularly and he feels it keeps him feeling good. There were a couple of student nurses doing clinicals today. One from the college where I work and her instructor. They asked if she could do a head-to-toe exam training session and David said yes. I knew our nursing students went out for clinicals but it was interesting getting to see what they do from this side of things. I also talked to a new tech trainee about her experiences so today has been busy.
4pm and the PA from Dr. B’s office stopped in to say she spoke to Dr. B and he says he felt it was ok to go home this evening. The biggest question was with the temp spikes, when will we know when to call the office. We should call and get checked out with a fever with symptoms. Things like fevers with headaches, sore throat, muscle aches, etc. The main infection concern with neutropenia is bacterial so we will need to watch for scratches. Avoid things that would introduce bacteria like gardening, scooping the litter box. I have been reading about diet with neutropenia. Need to wash all fruits and veggies extremely well and veggies and fruits if possible, need to be cooked. No raw veggies. No raw fish. All meats need to be cooked thoroughly. Avoid deli meats. Many of the same things you would avoid being pregnant. And like the PA said, it isn’t forever and will just be while the WBC is so low. It is suggested we avoid Thanksgiving and any public places where people are if it can be avoided. She said Dr. B plans to start shots following the chemo that should aid in this drastic drop in WBC. She said the biggest worry on Friday was that he needed blood ASAP and he got that so the rest can be managed. She said he was not going home with any antibiotics because the plan was to start these shots. I will look more about this soon. So we are just waiting here on the discharge order to come through and unfortunately, here we are knocking on shift change again. We can wait knowing our own bed is in our sight tonight. David is getting uncomfortable as he does this time of evening when it is time for the meds. He went ahead and asked for one of his as needed pain medications and hoping that will be working by the time we get to leave.
6:25 pm and while still waiting sort of patiently for release, we had a visit from another doctor. This one from Georgia Urology that was called in to consult on the hydronephrosis that showed up in his left kidney on the sonogram this morning. He was called to determine if that could be causing the fever. He said it was not and interestingly enough, he told us about a recent study I had just read about this morning when I couldn’t sleep. There is correlation with chemo and or the cancer causing hydronephrosis in kidneys. He said they would be able to monitor things like this and welcomed us to come and make an appointment. He explained if the hydronephrosis worsened, one course of treatment would include inserting a drain in his kidney to drain out the urine. He said of course that opens up another route of infection so if that can be avoided, they would like to keep a check on that.
These cancer treatments we go through in an effort to possibly eek out some extra months or even a year if we get really fortunate, play hell on our body but cancer itself does so damn much to our body and tries to kill us in more than just the one way. It wants us in all the ways. Our own body turning on itself but also fighting like hell to live. It sounds like a movie plot and definitely of the horror genre. I prefer comedy and fantasy myself or one where the main character, despite the odds, lives to fight another day. Those are the really great ones.
