Bottoms up!

I have finally zeroed out on my blood cell counts. So this is the bottom; I may stay here for a few days but then will begin to climb out. For the first time in my life, I am getting blood. Can't give me any old germy blood; I get the extra-pure, super-radiated, hi-octane blood. "Sanitized for Your Protection." Just like those paper bands on the motel's toilet seats.

And I get a big chart - yay me! Nurse Jesse hasn't had time to fill it in yet. I don't know if it will be just numbers, or maybe some smiley faces and gold stars on really good days.

Most of the nurses have been in the good-to-great range. My two weekend nurses surprised me, and not just because they were boy people. Nurse Paul is a big ol' strapping hunk o' manliness. He reminds me of one of the "Blue Collar Kings of Comedy" -- the one who always has a highball glass and a cigar. Anyways, Paul looks like he was first string, and and could snap a lesser fellow in pieces without much effort. I promise you, if you put his picture in front of people, no one would guess "nurse" in their first ten tries. So I was really surprised, then, when Paul was relieved by Nurse Floyd, who looks like he could snap Paul into pieces. My word, he's a big 'un! Pirate, Viking, Lumberjack. Again, I just don't think anyone would ever guess "nurse." I was almost afraid to see who would relieve Floyd....maybe Shrek?

On a personal level, this zeroing business is not much fun. I'm still quite fuzzy-headed, and in spite of frequent mouth rinsing, starting to get that mucositis. Hair is starting to fall out, still don't know if it will all fall out. I'm still surprised that a trip to the restroom & back exhausts me. I haven't done a lap around the unit for a couple of days; I'll try & start that again tomorrow. And maybe I can add it to my chart! And get another star!

Geez, does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Hysteriawatch Final

Intervention Radiologists 3
LaCootina 0

Sunday morning, part of my central line catheter ("Portitia") went cablooey. The outer plastic line cracked and sent saline a'flyin' all over the room. My nurses spent the rest of the day trying to find out what could be done and when, from a department called Intervention Radiologists. First, the Intervention Radiologists (for our purposes here, the "IR Pricks") refused to give even a ballpark time frame for when they would see me. I understand that on their planet, where they are no doubt worshipped as gods, one little catheter going "cablooey!" does not constitute an emergency. But all I was looking for was maybe a 4-hour time frame, because I wanted someone to be with me. The lucky task fell to Sis, who WORKS FOR A LIVING and so if the IR Pricks could just have said "Oh, it won't be until after noon." That could have been so very helpful, and just a slight indication of humanity.

I'm exercising all my limited patience all day long, stretched so thin you could see through it, because there is a chance, just a chance that the cablooey can be repaired and surgery will not be needed. However, there still existed a chance for surgery, so all day long I had to hold off on almost all my meds, and couldn't eat anything. Now at 30+hours since cablooey, I am ravenously hungry, blinding headache, anxiety very close to pee-my-pants level, exhausted, frustrated, using all my SuperPowers not to have a screaming meltdown on the nurses or my poor Sis because I have one goal, one minute obsession: if they can't repair it and i have to have surgery again, I don't want to be awake, I want to be knocked out.

Well, that's a no-brainer, you say. What kind of asshole would expect you to be awake during surgery? DING DING DING DING!

If I had been physically capable of doing so, I would have gotten up off the table and run. But I couldn't, so here's the 15-20 minute conversation that will haunt me for the rest of my life:
Me: I want to be out. Knock me out. Get the twilight stuff. I don't want to be awake.
IRP: Oh, it'll just take a few minutes. It'll be over before you know it.
Me: I DON'T WANT TO BE AWAKE. KNOCK ME OUT. KNOCK ME OUT. PLEASE! PLEASE!
{{{extreme pain, discomfort, nausea burbling, more pain, pain PAIN}}}
IRP: Nurse, can you fribulate the franchenator and blagivate the phericory?
ME: STOP I DON'T WANT TO BE AWAKE IT HURTS I CAN FEEL IT
{{{hurt hurt pain stop hurt stop stop}}}
IRP: ...and just FORCE IT here...!
ME: STOP STOP STOP PLEASE STOP NOW
IRP: {harrumph, big whiny crybaby}

Now, almost 24 hours later, I am only beginning to calm down. Because everything is "fresh" again, i feel like i have a javelin run through me. I know that ice packs and time will greatly relieve that. And I acknowledge that my version of the event is probably distorted by hunger, exhaustion, pain, hypersensitivity. But even with all those mitigating factors, I am asking them to tell me why I was not allowed to be sedated for the procedure.

EPILOGUE: I started this process by calling "Patient Services" and was initially treated rather frostily by John. I very briefly told him I had some issues with the way things were done by IR and would like to see the notes from those procedures. John insisted that I could not access any of my records or reports until after I was discharged from the facility. I told him to please check with his attorneys on that and I would do the same. Next thing i know, ol' John is knockin' at my door. Yessum, I can access those records and yessum, could he shine my feet, seeing as how i wasn't wearing any shoes? I doubt that I will get satisfactory answers... but by gum, I'll get answers!

Commentorium

I feel like Sally Fields in the (whatever year) Oscars: You like me. You really like me!.

To Michelle, Holly, Mac, Kathy, & others amazed at the notion of anti-hiccup medication: it doesn't really work. (You suspected as much, didn't you?) What does work is a large tablespoon of peanut butter, downed in one gulp. In my case, it works for 30-60 minutes. If you're still a' hiccin', only a hefty dose of anti-anxiety medication will work. It's probably worth it, at that point, because having the hiccups for a prolonged period of time does indeed create a whole lot of tension and anxiety, not to mention a whopper of a stomach ache. If you suffer hics with some regularity, tell your doc you need to keep anti-anxiety med in your arsenal.

(Unrelated: Kathy, I loveloveylove thedry washcloths. Brilliant.)

To Margaret, Superchai, Josh, et al, Fresh fruit is crawling with juicy goodness, and harmless bacteria, and maybe one dangerous lil bacterii. There was a time when I could have been tempted by a bowl of canned peaches, maybe with a llittle brown sugar and pecans. No more. I now believe that fruit should be either fresh-picked, flash frozen, or compost.

To Becky G: My long lost gal pal! I bet your darling daughters are teens now. Yikes! It was so nice to hear from you, though we both wish for different circumstances.

Josh: I missed the first presidential debate; couldn't risk the chance that it wouldn't cheer me up. Not so for the VPs. I expect a rip-roaring good time and expect to have the full armory of anti-meds (anti-anxiety, anti-seizure) at the ready. My only concern: will I be able to distinguish Sarah Palin from Tina Fey?

First Grade... at last

First Grade...Remember what a proud day that was? Kindergarten was for babies. What else do I remember about first grade? Hard to tell, but this was my toothless picture.

Well, I thought my teacher was a monster because she had freckles on her arms, something I'd never seen before. She yelled at me one day for reasons I didn't understand, and I had nightmares for a long time afterwards.

Oh, and in January, I got to make the big Goldfish Announcement.

I think my mom insisted on setting my hair in pincurls almost every night. There were always a few hairs that got pinched horribly and made it impossible to sleep. I got exactly this much curl each morning, and by lunchtime it was gone. Hardly worth it for a few hours' of this "Flying Nun" look.

Hysteriawatch: 4.75

The Plan is for Sis to be here at the asscrack o' dawn. And these folks can explain exactly what went cablooey, and exactly what they plan to do to correct it. And if I don't understand it, or if Sis doesn't understand it, they can just explain it again and again and again. And again. Cause if I don't understand it, I'm not doing it. So, Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do.

Nearing Zero

Imagine the worst day of your life so far. Now imagine it's 100 times worse than that. now imagine that you-- who more than anything in the universe, hate to throw up. Hate, hate hate hate it. Then you throw up. And the day's just beginning.

The antinausea medicine is called Ativan. You ask for it at the first sign of nausea, hoping to head it off at the pass. But my little window just gets smaller and smaller, and so this morning it was "Ativan!" "BARF!" Just that quick. it was also my first hurl in 3 days so that was kind of discouraging; thought i was past that.

But i (barely) managed to regroup and curl into a quiet little ball. slow, steady breathing, manage to change into clean pjs. And then Nurse P does "something".... or "something" happens while Nurse P is canoodling with portimer. And there is a GASP and there is a small CABLOOEY and suddenly I am covered with goopy saline and doctors and nurses are once again to-ing and fro-ing with that barely-controlled anxiety and no one will explain.

In the meantime, Bro #1 came for a visit. Ah, the voice of sanity. except i'm not absolutely sure he understands what happened. All we know for sure is that I'm going back in for more surgery tomorrow. Sis & Supergirl 3 also stop by; my conversation is distracted as i imagine small plastic arrows racing toward my heart, lungs, jugular. Of course no one will admit that anything has gone wrong, that anyone did anything wrong, but i wouldn't be going back into surgery otherwise would i? I just want someone to tell me the truth about this.

They have just enough ativan in me that i can't put up much of a fight. (hmmm...think that might be a coincidence?) But I'm very angry. i'm disappointed that Dr. A. has never called or stopped by. Is that unrealistic? This is the second major complication... and nothing. So i'm angry. angryangryangry. Fuzzybrained. Barfy. Angry. i hope this is the worst day of my life.

Day One

Well, Loyal Legions, if catnapping is ever an Olympic event, I stand ready to lead Team USA to victory. Even the boatload of painkillers I took yesterday could not trump the Dex (steroid). The good news is, the Dex dose for the next three days is just 4 mg instead of 10mg. Even without the dex, I might have been too anxious to sleep.

Day One starts with daily meds and daily blood draws. Already, I hate Portitia (the central line catheter) about 1% less. The neck pain is about 1% better. I managed to get down about half of my breakfast: an egg sandwich, the obligatory fruit cup, and some juice. Because of fear of infection, I seem to be on a no fresh fruit diet and it's killin' me. The one thing I want to eat is off limits. I've tried their canned fruit a couple of times, and I don't want to think about how long ago it was canned.

Everyone has been telling me that the transplant itself is a bit of a non-event, so that's what I was expecting. Well, it's a bit more than that. An hour prior, I get a bunch of pre-transplant meds: aniti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-nausea, anti-anxiety and I don't know what else. Then the hoopla begins. Lots of equipment is wheeled in, including a large cart with all kinds of stuff. The stem cells are brought up frozen and defrosted "while-u-wait!" Mom &Dad on one side, me in the bed, and the army of nurses and the supervising Doc God on the other. It looked like they were getting ready to embalm me.

I was already loopy from the anti-anxiety meds; even though they explained what they were doing each step of the way, I just had glassy-eyed nods in response. "Uh-huh." Then as the actual transplant begins, I feel the tension level in the room increase, like air pressure. I get just a flash of warning -- "I'm going to be sick"-- and a small basin is handed to me just in time. A little more of this, a little more of that, the whole thing is over in 20 minutes, but I was out cold long before.

DAY TWO
An uneventful night thanks to that boatload of medicine and a sleeping pill. I've had intermittent hiccups the last 12-18 hours. A tablespoon of peanut butter is an excellent remedy. However, in my case, it only lasts another half hour and then the hics are back! So now we add anit-hiccup meds to the lengthy list of anti-[fill in the disaster] medications.

And now, I'm just going to relax and enjoy my ice water, my cable-of-many-stations, and the opportunity to nap at will, without car doors slamming or dogs barking. I think (hope) I'm entering a boring phase, so maybe a few more nostalgic posts may be in order.