Friday, April 10, 2009--Blood Transfusion

Well, today is Good Friday. Yesterday Pete was not able to get his Velcade at the clinic because his counts were low and he had a 100 degree fever. He had a fever the day before at the hospital when he had his port put in and after receiving platelets. They gave him Tylenol and all was fine. He was chilled at the hospital on Wednesday and that night.

They gave him IV antibiotics and fluids at the clinic. He had a choice of spending the night in the hospital to get two units of blood or coming back to day as an outpatient. I wanted him to spend the night so they could keep an eye on him and be sure that he got plenty of fluids besides. That would give me a rest too. He flatly refused.

So, this morning we are heading over to the hospital to spend the day while he receives two units of blood. He will be taking an antibiotic for a week as well.

Easter will be very low key here. Hoping that by next week at least he'll feel like getting the mower running and we can mow the lawn. It's really high now and needed to be done two weeks ago.

Wednesday, 4/8/09

Today was a long day at our local hospital. This was the first time we were at this hospital since we normally go to the competing hospital. This one is so much better in so many ways. It was a great feeling.

Pete had surgery after receiving platelets and had a new port put in his chest. This one is much smaller than his old one and will allow for easier access for labs to be drawn, blood, platelets, and fluids to be given as well as any IV.

Tomorrow he'll put it into service at the clinic to get labs drawn and then receive chemo. We'll spend the afternoon at the clinic.

The medication he received today was very strong and with his reduced kidney function it really knocked him out. He was finally able to get up and out about 5:30 this evening to come home and went right to bed immediately after eating dinner.

Wednesday, 4/1/09

We've got one of the unpleasant pieces of business completed and are awaiting an answer.

We visited our local oncologist today and have had conversations with our call nurse from UAMS and after our visit today a call from Dr. B's assistant at UAMS with confusing info.

Monday, Peter went to the clinic to have his labs drawn. I sent a fax to our local doctor filling him in on what was going on and requesting that he contact UAMA doc and see if we can receive Velcade here. I had work to do and couldn't go with Peter so this covered the base of details he may not remember to explain fully.

Monday afternoon before he returned, I received a call from a home health firm. The lady was wanting to set up daily visits to clean his pick line and to draw labs to send to UAMS. I told her we didn't need this and that he got his labs drawn at the clinic, where he was right now. We went around a few times and I made it quite clear that I didn't want a home health nurse. That's an expense that insurance probably won't cover that I don't need. She said she would call the local docs office and let them know.

I then called our call nurse at UAMS and asked her about this pick line, explaining that we were really in the dark about it. She read through everything and said that it was only put in to get emergency fluids fast. I explained to her that I didn't understand why since he could have received fluids without it and since he didn't even need fluids all that badly. She said it should've been taken out before we left, but that our local doctor can have a nurse remove it and order a port to be put in again like he had for the past 7 years.

We saw the doctor today and he indeed did talk to Dr. B. from UAMS last night. He has an order for weekly Velcade, not the normal Velcade of day 1, 4, 8, 11. He is to continue thalidomide and dex. He suggested we receive the Velcade on the same day he takes dex, so we tentatively set this up for Thursdays starting next week.

He will still come on Monday's for his labs and will still mail in samples to UAMS.

The pick line was removed without any problems and labs were drawn. An appointment was set up for surgery for next Wednesday.

When we returned home and felt everything had been settled, we had two voice mails. One was from the doctor's assistant at UAMS. When I called her she didn't know the doctor's had talked and brought up a host of other questions. Now everything is a mess again. She said she would talk to the doctor and let us know of a plan. She anticipated some changes in his other medication and that instead of us returning immediately that he would probably want to have a 3-month trial of the combination of drugs before restaging. That would be great, though we certainly could return to find things much worse. We're hoping this combination squashes the Myeloma back from the 20% that he now has again.

The other call was about his Thalidomide. We suspect it is being sent to UAMS and not to us. All we could do was to leave a message.

I will be leaving to teach a class 4/21-23, but all should be fine here while I'm gone.

We have a lot of work to do here including regularly scheduled maintenance on some vehicles, lawn to be mowed, trees and shrubs to be trimmed badly, and general household chores that have fallen very far behind.

The Velcade will make him a little more tired and it's rainy and dreary here now, but hopefully we can move forward together and get some things in the house and on the property accomplished.