Lost Day

John was doing great this morning. Taking off three liters with dialysis can do wonders for a guy. He has stayed stable all day so has left ICU and gone back to his old room. The phone number is 206-598-3902.

This morning he was given a small dose of Ativan for his nausea. He did tolerate Ativan when he first got here but has become very intolerant of it. Basically he has been sleeping all day. It is very difficult to wake him. When he is awake he is very confused and at times agitated, pulling at his lines and cardiac monitors. Sometimes he does not know who I am. Sometimes he is hilarious. His nurse said that he was very cute even stoned. I had to agree. I just don't want him to have to go through this again.

I am staying the night as they figured that it would be very hard to get a sitter for him. We don't want him out of bed on his own. The last thing John needs is a bad fall. It would be double bad seeing as how he is on blood thinners.

The good news is that his nurse has entered in his chart that he is allergic to Ativan. We want to make sure that he never gets this drug again. It does not wear off at all because it does not clear his kidneys so we have to wait for the half life of the drug in order for the drug to no longer affect him. I wonder what the half life of Ativan is.

Seeing as how I am his sitter, I have to ring for the nurse when I have to go to the bathroom and tend to try to hold it so I am not ringing them every half an hour. It is hard when you have old lady bladder syndrome. Opps, too much information. I hope I am not sharing too much!

They tried to take him down for an x-ray today but had to bring him right back because he got so agitated and figured that it was just to dangerous plus upsetting for him. They are going to try later tonight if he becomes cognicient enough. Me thinks that I am in for a very long night.

I doubt that he will remember much of today. I think it will be a lost day.

I did wise up and pack pajamas for myself and a toothbrush. I am so thankful for the computer. I would be bored beyond tears without it. It has been a very long day.

Tomorrow he has dialysis again so he will lose part of that day being stuck in his bed and tired. The dialysis is fatiguing. Sigh.....

I long for him to be stable enough so that he can get back to our apartment and I can cook for him and he gets back to eating and regain his strength and all of that. Sigh...Sigh...Sigh

Better

John seems to be feeling better. We hope it lasts. Just thought I would let you know. Tomorrow he gets another injection of Velcade. I don't think that it is the one that is wrecking his gut. We shall see. He doesn't get the drug that I think is responsible until Monday. That is good because the grandkids will be here probably Friday evening so he will feel good for a couple of days anyway plus Friday morning is Noah's Christmas program at his preschool and I know he would not want to miss that.

Recouperation

Getting over this flu has been a slow uphill climb. I have been having sinus problems. I am feeling not to bad this morning. John is finally starting to feel better. He had a pretty rough weekend but did manage to keep himself out of emergency. He had to go for blood work yesterday. The stem cell team has been keeping a close eye on him. He did have to go for a little bolus (I.V.) yesterday because he was a little dehydrated. The nausea is settling and he is able to eat now. Hurray! He is going for a bone density test on Wednesday. He is going for gamma globulin on Thursday and Friday. That should give his immune system a boost. I think the whole thing was a bit of the stomach flu on top of the other flu symptoms. Nothing else showed up.

Home Sweet Home

John is doing well at home this time. I think that he will be staying. We are starting to get out and about a little bit. Yesterday we went to the Cancer Center for his blood work. After that he took me to Lawson Mall. He bought a new purse for me for my birthday. I got a huge bag seeing how my other purse was always stuffed to the max. Now I can bring a book for each of us and a water bottle for John when we go to his various appointments. After that we went to the Sally Ann to get some used stuffed toys for the dog. I don't know how but that dog knew what John had in the bag when we got home and just about did a Dino on John to get the toys. We also stopped off a Wal Mart to get a birthday present for Noah. Jonathan and Melissa and Noah came over for supper. John did very good with all of this activity. His legs get a little stiff. This morning he went to the store to get coffee and went and collected the mail. It is so nice seeing him doing mundane things. He is making his breakfast right now. Nice and normal.

John has an appointment on Friday with the kidney specialist. Pray that his kidneys will fully recuperate from all of the treatments that he has received. On Feb. 28 he has an appointment for a stress test. Pray that his cardio respiratory system recuperates as well. So far he has had no more short breath episodes since he has come home.

I am going to be working a bit the rest of this month. I will be training my replacement at the end of the month. Pray that everything keeps going well so I feel O.K. about leaving John alone at home. I think he will be fine. Don't worry, If I think that he is not O.K. I will stay home.

Getting Better Again!

John is feeling much better and hardly coughs at all. Yea to antibiotics and thanks to God. The Cancer Center phoned today. John will be admitted for the transplant on Jan. 14 so we have a week to kick around here. Thats O.K. by me. It gives me a chance to get caught up with the house work and get things ready at a more leisurely pace plus get totally over my cold and rest up.

I got the upstairs tree down today and the whole upstairs cleaned. Tomorrow I can start on the basement although I kinda hate to take all the decorations down. John is downstairs now watching a movie with the tree all lit up cozy like and seems to still be enjoying that. I was trying to figure out how I could just leave it all up and it would be all ready for next year. It is so tempting. That could prove to be very confusing for the grandkids though.

Becky is having a very bad week. Today she got a phone call from home. Harv and Shirley have been coming over to take care of the cats. Today they noticed a very bad smell. Her fridge quit working. Everything has gone rotten. She will have to go home to that mess. Can you pray for her that she would have no more bad things happening. I think that she has took about all she can cope with for now. They are going home on Sunday. Pray that they will have a good trip home.

Status Improved

Once again God has answered prayers. John is feeling better. His breathing has improved. We had a good day yesterday and even went out for supper with Angela and Jonathan. I got the basement cleaned and decorated for Christmas. We have our family shindig down there as we have grown and it is a tight squeeze upstairs. Today John has an appointment at the Cancer Centre for blood work. I hope we get some information on his pre-harvest work up.

I forgot to update you concerning the strange envelope that we had found in our mailbox. The RCMP phoned and they did find the girl. She was very sorry for putting it into our box and upsetting us. They have gotten her help. One of the teachers did recognize the hand writing. It was a random act...a cry for help. I am glad that they found her. I hope she will be O.K.

Tuesday Updates

I stayed in town last night I was worried about getting snowed in. We were supposed to get 20 cm. of snow so I stayed at Angela's place. It is so nice having her just 5 min. from the hospital. I can practically roll out of bed and be there. I am glad that we did not get the storm. Angela had to get my mom to the eye specialist today and a truck load of snow would have made that difficult. That went good. I had my appointment with the nose specialist. He spent about three minutes with me to tell me that the Cat Scan was normal (good) but that I have viral damage to the nerves in my olfactory center. If my sense of smell does not improve by March it is doubtful that it will come back. He said that there is nothing that they can do but to come back in March to let him know how it went. Ha! Why? There is nothing that they can do. Why waste the tax payers money on me coming back so he can tell me again that there is nothing they can do? I don't understand the logic of this.

We got better explanations today from the doctors about what is going on with John. For the tender spot on his jaw, they thought that maybe there was an abscess but the ultrasound came back good. They say it is an infection though and they will keep there eye on it. His pimple is getting worse and they will keep there eye on it as well. His white counts are beginning to inch up so in a few days he should have a least a partially functioning immune system.

They had to give him platelets today. Those counts were down to 15. They should be over 100 somewhere! He had to have Benadryl with that so he doesn't react bad. He slept all afternoon. Zonked out.

As for the lack of stem cells, Dr M. thinks that it is due to being so neutropenic and having infections is so hard on him. His body is trying so hard to get a grip on all this everything is going toward that. They are going to try with the stemgen for a few more days and then if there is not a marked improvement they will go with the other drug. The most urgent prayer request is that they can harvest his own stem cell and that God would heal his infections.

Becky brought him a fiber optic Christmas tree she got from Wal-Mart. He loved that. She figured since he is not allowed to have live plants or flowers that should cheer up the place. It did. I love it as well. She also gave the nurses some chocolates. They loved that. I would like to give them some baking to thank them, so I am going to try to whip up a batch of butter tarts before John goes home. They have been so good to us.

I felt very discouraged yesterday. I am sort of up and down. Today I feel more positive. I am finding it difficult staying on an even keel and not being fearful so you can pray for that. When I get like this I tend to lose my focus. I lost my car in the parking lot today. This was not a large parking lot. I almost left to report my car as stolen! Yeesh! I must have been quite a sight wandering around that parking lot. I just got my directions totally mixed up. I was totally frozen by the time I found it. Baby it is cold outside!

Happy Hanukkah

Feeling Better

John is feeling much better. He still has some nausea but it is manageable. He had solid food last night for supper and did fine with that. He goes in tomorrow for the first of his injections. Pray that he won't have an allergic reaction.

Regarding the previous post: after learning more about secretpost.com we are not so concerned for our safety...I have calmed down...I no longer have visions of someone coming at me with a razor blade...John was never concerned! If you go to that site this note looks a lot like what you see there. If you go there be prepared for some sad and disturbing things. People have some horrible secrets. This secretpost.com thing is kind of a fad. The kids know about it. Angela says that the teachers do sometimes do this as a project so the kids can see that everybody has problems and feel more connected to each other. I wonder if they were doing any such project? Most of the students would not feel safe to hand in that secret even anonymous...so they may have wrote the real secret, put it in our box (we are handy) and handed in a less grave secret. I also wonder if we know this person? It makes me sad to think that someone has such a tough go of it that they cut themselves. Anyway the RCMP are going to take photocopies to the schools and see if any of the teachers can recognize the hand writing. Pray for this person...we may even know him/her.

Anyway we are off today to try and get Johns meds re-prescribed! He has no more refills on his Aranesp...pity sakes...We have to get his prescriptions from our family doctor! He can get in today...Yey!!! It would get very awkward to juggle this the rest of the week.