Pump Master

Hopefully, theoretically, I think I can! I will go over all the material again and practice the line flush in the sink. LOL! It really is not that hard, it just freaks me out a bit. I will be squirting: 2 10cc syringes with normal saline straight into Johns body. Hee hee! I know what normal saline is from experience at work! Bad memories of Day Hospital trying to run a code blue and phoning down to Supply and Processing and asking "code blue...normal saline...stat...Day hospital!" At which point they hung up the phone. It was a good thing my co-worker knew what normal saline was and it was a good thing I knew where Day Hospital was! Now if the lady would have asked me for a .9 solution of sodium chloride? I was standing right by it at the time and knew what that was! Cheese Louise! Anyhow...they are not supposed to be doing the code blue like that and they have all that they need right there at their finger tips. It turned out that it was a couple of physical therapist who did not know the correct proceedure to follow. Still...it did not do my nervous system any good. I have never forgotten what normal saline is. I will not be mixing this up with potassium chloride. You cannot trick me. Nope! You can believe that I will be checking what it is and expiration dates. After the IV solution is complete, I have to flush the lines again, once with normal saline and once with heparin. We were instructed in programing the pump, hooking up the lines as well plus dismantling that when finished all using sterile technique. Tomorrow or the next day we will learn how to change the dressings. I have to keep charts on his temperature, how much he drinks and eats and pees. I have to keep the day organized, make sure he gets to all appointments, cook and do laundry. They want him in clean cloths everyday. I have spent the evening going over all the material. Study, study. My brain feels fried.

We met with the renal specialist today. The drug did not damage John's kidneys. He says all systems go. We will see him again in four or five weeks.

We will find out tomorrow what treatment protocol they are going to use. He is in a study they are doing to see which protocol is better. In one protocol they do a total body irradiation without infusion of fludarabine (these medical words always play havoc with the spell checker and my brain) and the other protocol has treatment with fludarabine and irradiation. The only reason they use the fludarabine is to suppress the immune system so that John does not reject the graft. Because he has already had treatment that has suppressed his immune system they do not feel that the removal of that drug infusion will not cause any negligible risk of rejection. What they want to learn in the study is if removing this step in people who fit the use of this protocol will help in the incidence of infections post treatment. They are thinking that the fludarabine causes an increase in incidence of infections even well after transplant. It is not a large increase but they still are not sure which way is best. This study will help determine that. They feel either way is fine for him. The only other difference that we learned of is in the drug that they use to suppress the immune system after. Both are hard on the kidneys. Same difference there.

We have a full day ahead of us tomorrow. I am feeling a little stressed. His appointments are really cutting it close. I hope I can fall asleep. Sometimes that is hard when I am wired.