Christmas Week

Now that I am finally home, I can recap my week for all of you.  Oh joy, lol.  I started off on Christmas Eve going into the cancer center in Corning to have my picc line flushed at 10 am.  The previous day I had noticed that I had a lot of tenderness in my arm around where the picc line ran.  When I woke up Wed morning I had a horrible sore throat.  Mouth and throat sores are one of the side effects of chemo, so I figured I just just dealing with a whopper.  I mentioned both things to the nurse that was flushing my picc (and I'm going to take this time to say that the nurses at the Corning cancer center are all amazing and make all this stuff not as difficult to go through!!!  I love them!) and she took a look at my arm.  She thought that is looked a little red and swollen and proceeded to take my temp, which was 100.6 (anything over 100.5 is bad in cancer land).  She flushed out the picc, and then made a call up to RPH to talk to my oncologist, but he wasn't working.  She talked to the oncologist that was on in Corning and he said that I needed to go the the ED.  The fever was and issue, as well as the looks of my arm... I think generally we were all afraid that my picc was infected.  So... it was off to the ED.

So around 11:30 I was hanging out in emergency, called and let Chad know what was going on, and called to let my parents know (we were supposed to do Christmas Eve dinner at their house).  It was decided that I would have blood cultures done out of a regular vein and out of my picc line.  I was also to have a chest x-ray and an ultrasound of my arm to check for blood clots.  I do have to say, the new ED was very nice, and I timed it perfectly cause I was in there before the madness hit (they were super busy all week!!) and they were pretty quick to get things rolling.  After a few needle pokes, I was taken for an ultrasound of my neck and upper right arm, which took about half and hour.  I then had the chest X-ray since I was already over in that part of the hospital.  I went back to the ED to wait.  I was told by the PA that saw me that due to the fever and suspicion of infection that I would be admitted to the hospital overnight for IV antibiotics and possible removal of the picc.  Well there went our dinner plans... and I was not very happy about it.  While I was waiting for a room to be readied, they brought me some lunch and also brought a little good news.   It appears that the current chest x-ray is already showing improvement from the first cycle of chemo.  The bad news that came with that was that I had a clot in my arm in the basilic vein.  So, before I went up to my room I got my first dose of the blood thinner Lovenox... a nice little shot in my right side.  And it felt wonderful.

I got moved up to a room at about 2 pm, and I was placed on reverse isolation because my WBC count was 0.2... which pretty much means I have no immune system.  Because of this I got a shot of Neupogen (which is like Neulasta for WBC production).  I also started receiving one of the two antibiotics that I'd get for an undetermined period.  One was vancomycin, and the other was cefepime.  I had also been getting lozenges to help with my throat.  And then my wait began, lol.  My mom and Chad both came to see me, and I let them in on the news that the cultures could take 2-3 days to come back.  Unfortunately it was looking like I'd be hanging out a bit longer than I'd intended.  I settled in for the night, worked on some knitting and watched tv (it was free! lol).

Christmas Day was a whole different story.  I woke up at 3:30 am with another killer sore throat, and got some tylenol and a lozenge.  Eight am rolled around and I could barely swallow my own saliva my throat was so sore.  I rang for the nurse and requested another lozenge (the care provider came in for me to talk to).  When my breakfast came at 8:15 I re-iterated that I wouldn't be able to eat unless I had something for my throat.  And so it began... I'm not going to go into all the details because one- I don't feel like taking the time, and two- because it would make a lot of probably very nice people sound very bad.  After Finally getting a lozenge (that didn't work) at around 10:30 I started getting a bit pissed off, lol.  We then went through and agonizing cycle of lozenges, chloraseptic spray, and magic mouthrinse... none of which helped.  I managed to eat my mashed potatoes that came with my lunch, but I cried like a baby the entire time.  The Dr didn't seem to believe that the sore was from my chemo, so he did a throat culture and ordered a ct scan of my neck.  Apparently they were checking for an abcess (which I didn't have).  Oh, and I forgot to mention I'd been dealing with a fever on and off all day.  I think the highest we saw was 101.9.  At around 7:30 pm I was given tylenol 3.  The Dr had started talking about putting me on a bunch of different things, "just in case" cause he didn't really know what was going on with my throat.  At this point I refused anything else and told him I wanted him to consult with the oncologist on call at RPH.  All that got me was the nurse supervisor, LOL.  Oh did I mention that my also pissed off parents were also in attendance?  I wouldn't mess with them, lol.  Basically we ended up with me denying a tranfser to RPH, and getting a norco for my pain (finally!!!).  And low and behold I was able to eat some soup for dinner... without crying!  Score!

So Friday was much better as far as my throat went, but now I was dealing with extreme nausea and vomiting.  I battled with it all day long... hardly ate a thing and was getting IV meds to try to treat it.  Mom and Dad and Chad came to visit again (I'd pretty much declined any other visitors due to the isolation precaution), and Krystal stopped by in the morning to say hi while she was working   :)  I don't know if the nausea was from the antibiotics or the chemo, but it sucked.  A lot.  They did stop the vancomycin at least.  And now I was also doing my own lovenox injections twice a day in my little love handles.  And I do have to say... for some reason it hurts much less when I do them myself.  I have no idea how long I'll have to keep doing them... I guess at some point they'll do another ultrasound of my arm to check things out.  Oh, and can I just say how much it sucks to have a picc line that no one can use?  By the time I left I had 2 IV's and 6 sticks for blood draws.  What a bunch of crap.  So one other thing that was determined from my morning blood work was that my platelets were low.  Apparently they don't like them to go below 20, and mine were 19, so that meant I was due for a couple of platelet transfusions.  So that was how I spent the evening.  That and being nauseous, and puking, and repeat.  I think I was able to eat a little soup at dinner with the help of my IV meds.

Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday... nausea, vomiting, IV meds to treat it... repeat.  Around dinnertime I had figured out the timing of my meds before I got dinner so I was actually able to eat and hold everything down.  Oh and the neupogen seemed to work, so I was taken off of isolation because my wbc's were up to 2.2.  They finished out the last of the antibiotics, and I was told that all of my cultures had come back negative (yay!!!).  So my picc line didn't need to come out.  My platelets appeared to be dropping again though, so they wanted to keep an eye on that.  I had a visit from Tim (who was only in town pretty much the whole time I was in the hospital) which was nice, and then Chad and my parents.  I tried to just sleep away as much of Saturday night as I could because they were talking about maybe letting me go home on Sunday.

Sunday morning blood work showed that my platelets were down to 23, and based on the downward trend they wanted to give me two more infusions.  They were talking about keeping me another night also.  I have chemo scheduled for 7:30 Monday morning at RPH, so the last place I wanted to be was still at Corning.  I wanted one night at home before I did more chemo so I could celebrate Christmas with my husband and 7 month old.  It was so hard missing his first "Christmas".  When I heard that they were going to have to get platelets from Rochester I got a bit depressed.  And when the Dr said that they would want to keep me overnight after the transfusion I got even more depressed.  Then for some reason, he came back into my room and said that since I was going to be at RPH the next day for blood work, that he would let me go when the transfusions finished.  The nurse said she had never seen them get there so fast (they had them by 11:30).  I was all finished with them at about 4:30.  So after 8 injections and 8 sticks for IVs and blood I was free!!!

I went home and had a very nice first Christmas with Chad and Dagen... and although my hair is falling out (again) and I'm covered in bruises, I'm a very happy camper.  :)