I’m home again after an exhausting and unexpected interlude
with the hospital. Still trying to
figure out that institution. You really
turn over most aspects of your life to its control. It has many friendly faces and amenities but
there is also a sense of imprisonment.
WARNING: This post
discusses body waste products. Can you
handle that? If not, skip to lower on the
page where you see ***.
It all started with a sense that I have that something is
going on in my gut. I’ve been feeling
little twitches in my liver (yep, I know exactly where it resides) and
wondering whether cancer is preparing to mess with me again. I suppose anyone who has ever had cancer
suppresses a fear that it could return and the littlest sign of reawakening
exposes the hiding place for that fear.
My twitches had me on high alert and therefore I was focused perhaps a
little too much on the output of my digestive system. Is that blood I see or perhaps just the beets
I had for dinner two nights ago? It
doesn’t really look like blood and yet it is different from what I’m used
to. I don’t really want to discuss my
bowel movements with anyone. I don’t want to talk about this; not with a nurse,
not with someone who picks up a phone at a doctor’s office, and not even my
wife who has enough to worry about without thinking about my poop too. I even hope you are not reading this.
Pee, on the other hand, is just slightly easier to talk
about. So when I had two days in a row
of urine that was pinkish or maybe orangey, it gave me both concern and courage
to call the doctor’s office to see whether that alone was enough to come in
early or should I just wait until my regular doctor appointment next Tuesday. Nurse Jackie checked with Dr. K and asked me
to come in to the infusion clinic right away for blood and urine tests. I got there about 4:00pm on Thursday.
The Lacks Center people are always so wonderful to deal with
and there is rarely any kind of hassle and thus it is really a comfort zone for
me despite the fact that they typically dump poisonous chemicals directly into
my circulatory system.
Since I would
need a direct blood draw, when I arrived I asked if
Dawn was there today.
She is the best Phlebotomist I have ever
encountered.
I have no fear if it is
Dawn doing the arm poke.
Dawn was not there.
I wondered aloud whether they could do a draw from my port but Nurse Jackie
said that they would specifically be doing some clotting tests and the
Heparin
they use while accessing the port would contaminate the test.
Since my platelet counts have been low and
platelets are the clotting agents in blood, the big worry is that there could
be internal bleeding.
So I got the poke from the other Phlebotomist, who on a
previous occasion had missed the vein thrice before switching to my other
arm. This time, fortunately, she nailed
it right away. I rendered a orangeish
urine sample right afterward (in the bathroom) and then sat around reading the newspaper while the lab
tested the samples.
Jackie came back after a bit. The good news was that there was no blood in
the pee sample. The redness in the urine
could mean other things. The bad news
was that the hemoglobin level in my blood sample had taken a dive since the
last test. It was approaching a level
where they consider a transfusion. She
asked if I could provide a stool sample.
I gulped a cup of coffee and shortly after, found I was able to
oblige. After more waiting around, the
answer came back: there was indeed blood
in the sample. Jackie said I should
report to a hospital room on the fourth floor for intake. This was not what I had in mind when I made
that initial phone call.
*** I slipped into the skimpy hospital uniform and called
Mary and then Marlee to let them know they were on their own for dinner and
asked brave Mary to bring a few things from the house, including Marlee, so
they could pick up my car from the open-air parking lot. Extra cars can be a hassle when leaving the
hospital.
The 4th Floor nurse ran through a huge list of questions, as
they must do, and accessed my port for ready access to medicines, saline and
blood. She also sampled my fluids for
redundant testing. Shortly, one of Dr.
K’s Physician’s Assistants showed up to help figure out what must come next.
She reiterated that the dropping hemoglobin levels were concerning. The reading from my regular chemo appointment
last week had been 11.1. The reading
from the infusion clinic a couple hours ago was 8.6 and the sample that they
processed minutes ago was 7.9. If it hit
7.0, they would give me a transfusion of a couple of units of blood. She also indicated that they would bring in
an upper Gastro-Intestinal Specialist to see if a source for bleeding could be
found from the top down. If nothing
could be determined from an endoscopy, then they would likely proceed to a CT
Scan.
It was 6:40pm and I was hungry and remembering from before
that the kitchen closes at 7:00pm, I requested a menu and ordered enough food
to last me until midnight. The nurse
said no food after midnight so I would be properly fasted for a scope in the
morning. She also said I would likely be
spending a second night in the hospitl to monitor the blood transfusion.
Then the waiting began.
The food arrived and then Mary and Marlee came
up with my iPad and chargers.
The room
staff changed. Mary and Marlee left since I was pretty settled and they had not
yet eaten. More fluids were taken.
My
blood type was tested (O+). I checked out the TV channels but settled on playing
with
QuizUp, a trivia App on my iPad where you match wits live with other players from
all over the world.
I selected the
category, “Name the Movie” and played until I was ranked #1 in Michigan, which
is about a #238 ranking for that category worldwide.
The nurse popped in to let me know that I would be awoken
at 3:00am by a new nurse for more blood tests and so I shut off all electronics
and lights and slipped off to sleep easily.
I woke about 2:45am and decided to browse social media until
the blood draw.
In the morning at about 7:30am I met a new nurse who
reminded me “No food or water”.
She said
doctors usually came around sometime in the morning.
She also told me that my particular Type O
blood included a rare
antibody so they needed to find a couple of pints
somewhere that had that same antibodies so my cells would get along nicely with
the donor cells.
She said that chemo
patients occasionally develop special antibodies.
I wanted to know more about this and she told
me she would try to find more info.
But
good news… there had been an uptick in my hemoglobin levels.
Eventually the GI Doc showed up to explain his plans for
me.
He thought the blood loss could be
coming from an ulcer or a new stomach tumor.
His endoscope could prove or disprove that.
I’ve been through dozens of
endoscopies so
that was no big deal.
The trouble was,
his schedule was already quite full so he could not squeeze me in until sometime
in the afternoon.
For me that meant no
food or drink for another half day and lots more waiting around.
A different PA colleague of Dr. K came by to
say Dr. K would come by after the scoping to let me know what was up.
I downloaded a new book on my iPad and read for a
while. My sister Betsy volunteers at the
Lacks Center 3rd floor (on top of an incredibly busy life schedule)
so she stopped by around lunchtime for a visit and conversation. My nurse
popped in again to say that the hemoglobin levels were continuing to rise and
they would be cancelling the transfusion. Also my pee was now a natural pale
yellow. The reddish color had probably
been due to dehydration and all these IV fluids they had given me had corrected
this. Finally at about 1:45, a guy from
transport showed up to wheel me to my procedure. By 2:15 they were ready to proceed.
I’ve had better endoscopies, ones where I did not wake up
gagging on an instrument in my throat, but the Versed they give you makes you
forget most of the experience. It just begins
and then seemingly immediately, you are all done.
Because of the drugs, I am groggy on the rest but I do know that
everything looked fine and dandy from his perspective. I have a picture to prove it.
Back in the room, I ordered some food and waited for Dr.
K. Mary showed up and we waited
together. Finally Dr. K showed up and
pretty much told me that I had managed to self-heal and that he was going to
release me. Yahoo!! We’d continue with our regular chemo schedule
and we would do a CT scan after Mary and I returned from our Florida vacation
in just a few weeks. Irrationally, I had more fear
about missing this vacation than I did about the possible return of a tumor so
this was really good news.
I do kind of feel better now that I am hydrated but that 24
hours in the hospital sure felt like a big, expensive waste of time just to get
my pee the right color. Once you check
in, you just kind of have to ride it to the end, wherever that takes you.
The next day Mom and Dad drove us down to Bradenton where we
were greeted by Matt and Karen at their home.
We all dined together for lunch before bidding adieu to the folks. Matt, Karen, Mary and I hung out in the lush
back yard and discussed plans for our next 4 days. We had splurged on a near-beach, 2-bedroom
apartment rental on Anna Maria Island to celebrate Mary and my 8-year Anniversary and Matt and
Karen’s “honeymoon” as they had just legally tied the knot the week before; a
mere civil rubber stamp to augment their commitment ceremony marriage from
years ago. The “Key Lime Cottage” was
large and lovely with a big and well-appointed kitchen, although we had to walk across a busy road to get to the
private beach.
The next day was very foggy but we decided it would be a
perfect day to try out the very popular Clearwater Beach. On a nice day you have to get up pretty early
to avoid the gridlock traffic of beach-goers.
It was a relaxing day and after lunch we went to the Clearwater Aquarium
which is essentially a rehab facility for wounded dolphins, sea turtles and sea
otters. Its claim to fame is being the
setting for the Disney movie, "Dolphin’s Tale” and much of their displays had
to do with celebrating that movie. Since
none of us had seen it, it was pretty much lost on us but we did see the real
life tail-less dolphin “Winter” who stars in the movie.
