Friday, 6/12/09
This has been a wild ride the past 48 hours.
Yesterday, Pete was moved from the old hospital back to the new hospital after renovations were complete. I was not with him for the day because I was attending two days of meetings in Little Rock on business. He said that it was like a Chinese fire drill. According to him, the entire day was very insane with a constant flow of people and things going on every 15-30 minutes for one thing or another. He was frazzled when I arrived at 7:15 that evening. When there is so much going on at once, he has a tendency to get anxious.
I had a little bit of a run in with his nurse that had just come on duty because I asked for his labs and then because I had some exciting news for him and the nurse was convinced that the blood pressure that was just taken was wrong and wanted to retake it. I thought we were going to get into a fist fight because she accused me of interfering with them retaking his blood pressure and got mad and yanked it all off and stormed out. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and have a charge nurse come in and attempt to throw me out. That didn't happen. We had a lot to catch each other up on and I'd never met this nurse before and it really put a damper on the excitement that I was trying to share with Peter about my meetings.
Once I got the labs and was almost reprimanded for assuming they would be on the table like they had been every single day without fail, I found that Pete's white count had doubled and was now over 1! I asked Pete if the doctor had anything to say about when he would need the next chemo and he said she had been in 3 times, but hadn't said anything except that he was doing great.
We spent a couple of hours getting caught up on each other's days and then I went back to our room to get some sleep and let him get some sleep.
Friday I attended meetings only part of the day and then went to the hospital. Pete was sitting up in the chair and watching t.v. His labs were waiting on the table and between he, his tech, and him I was informed that he'd had an excellent day so far. He'd been up early, eaten well, did some walking and marching in place, and been up in the chair the whole day. He was in good spirits and we caught up again on our days.
Pete told me that he asked the doctor about the plan and she told him that as soon as he was able to walk more he would be released, stay and be watched for about a week as an outpatient and then to go home for a brief break and to be strong enough to go through the next chemo.
The doctor stopped in and confirmed this. His white count is really strong and today will be the last night that he will have a growth factor shot. His red count is holding. He still need platelets each day, but that's completely normal.
The nurse he had for the day is likely to have him this weekend too, which will be nice for consistency and she's someone we like. She was extra great today because she encouraged him to get up from the chair before dinner and stand and march in place. He did so and I was really amazed at just how strong he had become so fast. She helped him with some other tasks too and ordered a bedside commode for him to graduate to. She really went out of her way in every way. She said tomorrow the goal would be to march in place three separate times throughout the day on top of whatever physical therapy did. There's no guarantee that PT will come on the weekend. They are generally short-staffed on weekends and often no one comes by to work with him.
He had dinner and we talked and he finally was ready to get into bed.
So, it was a very good day. I had some success with a financial issue too.
We hope we have more good days. One good day makes up for a whole lot of bad days.
Yesterday, Pete was moved from the old hospital back to the new hospital after renovations were complete. I was not with him for the day because I was attending two days of meetings in Little Rock on business. He said that it was like a Chinese fire drill. According to him, the entire day was very insane with a constant flow of people and things going on every 15-30 minutes for one thing or another. He was frazzled when I arrived at 7:15 that evening. When there is so much going on at once, he has a tendency to get anxious.
I had a little bit of a run in with his nurse that had just come on duty because I asked for his labs and then because I had some exciting news for him and the nurse was convinced that the blood pressure that was just taken was wrong and wanted to retake it. I thought we were going to get into a fist fight because she accused me of interfering with them retaking his blood pressure and got mad and yanked it all off and stormed out. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and have a charge nurse come in and attempt to throw me out. That didn't happen. We had a lot to catch each other up on and I'd never met this nurse before and it really put a damper on the excitement that I was trying to share with Peter about my meetings.
Once I got the labs and was almost reprimanded for assuming they would be on the table like they had been every single day without fail, I found that Pete's white count had doubled and was now over 1! I asked Pete if the doctor had anything to say about when he would need the next chemo and he said she had been in 3 times, but hadn't said anything except that he was doing great.
We spent a couple of hours getting caught up on each other's days and then I went back to our room to get some sleep and let him get some sleep.
Friday I attended meetings only part of the day and then went to the hospital. Pete was sitting up in the chair and watching t.v. His labs were waiting on the table and between he, his tech, and him I was informed that he'd had an excellent day so far. He'd been up early, eaten well, did some walking and marching in place, and been up in the chair the whole day. He was in good spirits and we caught up again on our days.
Pete told me that he asked the doctor about the plan and she told him that as soon as he was able to walk more he would be released, stay and be watched for about a week as an outpatient and then to go home for a brief break and to be strong enough to go through the next chemo.
The doctor stopped in and confirmed this. His white count is really strong and today will be the last night that he will have a growth factor shot. His red count is holding. He still need platelets each day, but that's completely normal.
The nurse he had for the day is likely to have him this weekend too, which will be nice for consistency and she's someone we like. She was extra great today because she encouraged him to get up from the chair before dinner and stand and march in place. He did so and I was really amazed at just how strong he had become so fast. She helped him with some other tasks too and ordered a bedside commode for him to graduate to. She really went out of her way in every way. She said tomorrow the goal would be to march in place three separate times throughout the day on top of whatever physical therapy did. There's no guarantee that PT will come on the weekend. They are generally short-staffed on weekends and often no one comes by to work with him.
He had dinner and we talked and he finally was ready to get into bed.
So, it was a very good day. I had some success with a financial issue too.
We hope we have more good days. One good day makes up for a whole lot of bad days.
posted by BethPowell at 8:40 PM
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