A Couple Days of R & R...(Sort of)

An ER date night

Tuesday afternoon I started feeling more than just extra tired. I was feeling like I may have a fever. I had taken my temperature a couple of times through the day but it was normal. It was about 6:30 p.m. when I took it again and saw 100.3. Ugh...100.5 and I have to call the 24/7 oncology phone number. If I was going to have to go to the ER, I thought I would take a shower and take it again. Maybe it wouldn't get any higher.

I was shivering as I made my way to the bedroom. I closed the window so that it was a little warmer in the room. I will admit, I cried a little in the shower thinking that here was something else I haven't experienced before. I certainly didn't want to have to be in the hospital. By the time I was done, I knew that the fever had gone up. Sure enough, it was 101.3, a whole degree.

After checking in with the oncologist on call, we made our way to the ER. I was a little horrified as we walked in and the ER waiting room was full to overflowing. The nurse behind the desk checked me in and asked "do you want a mask?" I nodded. Sigh. We found a seat around the corner and away from the crowd.

It took about 45 minutes to get into the ER room and everyone worked quickly to get my information
and get the port accessed and the blood test started. In the hospital environment their protocol is very sterile. My whole body was draped, the nurse accessing the port had a gown, mask and hair covering, then there was another smaller drape with a hole in the middle. She got the needle in and was able to flush it but she couldn't get blood from it. She tried a few times but then called in another nurse.

The view from room 537

A visit from my people

Finally, they were able to get it in correctly and they drew the blood. Let's just cut to the chase and say it was about 1:30 a.m. when I got to my room upstairs. I was pretty discouraged. David had left making sure he knew who needed to be where when and to relieve my dad who had come to stay with the kids after bedtime. The hospitalist said 2-3 days. I was thinking "overnight for observation".

It is funny how desperately I wanted to just get upstairs into a bed. Running a fever and past midnight I was just spent. I say funny because once I was up in the room, in my bed and the fluids were hooked up and going, I could not for the life of me fall asleep. It is like my adrenaline had somewhere kicked in when I wasn't paying attention.

Alone for some rest

In the morning when the doctor came to see me, it sounded like there was a possibility that I would only have to stay one more night if my fever were to go down. Wednesday was a nice peaceful day. The hospital floor was pretty quiet except for the man across the hall that would every so often get angry at the nurses and yell how much he wanted to go home.

I do have to admit, the only thing you really can do at the hospital hooked to fluids is rest. I did. The
kids came up for a very short time Wednesday evening which was nice. By 9:30 Wednesday night I was ready to sleep. I remember one time in the night when the nurse came to check my vitals. I didn't wake until 5:30 a.m. When I woke up there definitely was a notable difference in how I felt.

A happy ride HOME!

This morning when the doctor came she gave the go ahead to start discharge papers. It always takes so much time to get everything put together on their end to let people out. It wasn't til 1:30 p.m. when the papers were in the nurse's hand and she was ready to give me the heprin in my port and get me disconnected.

Unfortunately, my excitement was delayed when the nurse, working on the tape all around the needle in the port pulled out the needle before she injected the heprin. UGH! Remember the description from above when they accessed the port in the ER? Yes...same thing, she had to re-access with all the draping and then again, calling in another nurse to help when the port would flush but she couldn't get blood return.

All that said, I am glad to be home. I am laying low through the weekend and praying that anything that has happened this week will not affect the start of the next protocol that starts next Tuesday. We will see how the bloodwork comes back. God is in control and I am good with that. I feel so much better than I did when we left for the hospital Tuesday night so I am thankful for the R & R.

I got teary on Wednesday when I was reminded by my sweet brother Arlen in Honduras in a message:

Psalm 41:3 "The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed"