Well, the last few days of Chemo were uneventful. Not much besides being bored, walking the floor and being bored. It was nice to see Eric Ulrich and my niece Vicki and my dad come visit. About the only excitement was the PICC line not wanting to clot right away after they took it out when I went to shower. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep, the meds, or a combination of both, but I was wiped out when I got home. Monday night and all of Tuesday was mostly sleep and pee, sleep and pee…. I had zero appetite, but I tried to force myself to eat and drink. Apparently not enough.
Wednesday was a different story. I had a 10:30 appointment for “an injection” at the Voorhees center. Mother nature decided I was going to be a little late and I thought since it’s just an “injection” I can get something to eat after… Well I walk in and get directed to a chair, settle in and after a few minutes one of the nurses comes up to explain I am getting an INFUSION along with the injection! They have to give me pre-meds to help avoid the side effects and I’ll be there about 6 hours. This would have been REALLY nice to know BEFORE I walked in. So I went down to the little food kiosk the have and got a cinnamon bun and a chocolate milk, then back up to the room. They give me the pre-meds and start the infusion. Because they know it can have side effects, they slowly increase the rate at which it is given. That’s what, 3 red flags now???
Things are going along ok and they up the rate at least once, maybe twice. Then I tried to get comfortable about the same time as another rate increase. My stomach sloshed and gurgled, I got the chills and nauseous and let them know. they gave me another anti-nausea med, but that didn’t have time to work because it was time to lose breakfast. after I cleaned out my stomach, I felt fuzzy and still cold. They ran vitals and my BP crashed to 77/40 and my pulse Ox was around 90 and pulse of about 60. My color could be described as “sheet”. As my friend Randy asked “white as sheet, oh sheet or brown sheet?”… all of the above! I went white as a sheet (so did the nurses), the nurses went “OH SHEET”, then the sheet was brown from me not making the vomit bag. They stopped all the meds, pushed fluids and the doc said to call for an ambulance. Fortunately one of the docs there yesterday was also one who saw me in the hospital, so we had a little continuity there.
So I got a ride with Tom and Jason from Voorhees FD and Linda from the Medics to Cooper. The wanted Cooper in case I was going to be admitted. Sorry, guys, for that ride on the day before Thanksgiving. There was a lot of traffic and NO easy way to get there. Once in the hospital they gave more fluids and monitored, my numbers came way up, back to normal and I was released.
Had some spaghetti and meatballs last night with a PowerAid, felt good to get solid food!
I already had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Ferber Friday morning so I guess we will regroup and see if it was just dehydration, a reaction to the med or what he thinks and where we will go from here.
Today I had coffee and a breakfast sandwich and a chicken sandwich for lunch, took the dogs out for a walk and some fresh air. Hope to see the family for dinner tonight.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
Wednesday was a different story. I had a 10:30 appointment for “an injection” at the Voorhees center. Mother nature decided I was going to be a little late and I thought since it’s just an “injection” I can get something to eat after… Well I walk in and get directed to a chair, settle in and after a few minutes one of the nurses comes up to explain I am getting an INFUSION along with the injection! They have to give me pre-meds to help avoid the side effects and I’ll be there about 6 hours. This would have been REALLY nice to know BEFORE I walked in. So I went down to the little food kiosk the have and got a cinnamon bun and a chocolate milk, then back up to the room. They give me the pre-meds and start the infusion. Because they know it can have side effects, they slowly increase the rate at which it is given. That’s what, 3 red flags now???
Things are going along ok and they up the rate at least once, maybe twice. Then I tried to get comfortable about the same time as another rate increase. My stomach sloshed and gurgled, I got the chills and nauseous and let them know. they gave me another anti-nausea med, but that didn’t have time to work because it was time to lose breakfast. after I cleaned out my stomach, I felt fuzzy and still cold. They ran vitals and my BP crashed to 77/40 and my pulse Ox was around 90 and pulse of about 60. My color could be described as “sheet”. As my friend Randy asked “white as sheet, oh sheet or brown sheet?”… all of the above! I went white as a sheet (so did the nurses), the nurses went “OH SHEET”, then the sheet was brown from me not making the vomit bag. They stopped all the meds, pushed fluids and the doc said to call for an ambulance. Fortunately one of the docs there yesterday was also one who saw me in the hospital, so we had a little continuity there.
So I got a ride with Tom and Jason from Voorhees FD and Linda from the Medics to Cooper. The wanted Cooper in case I was going to be admitted. Sorry, guys, for that ride on the day before Thanksgiving. There was a lot of traffic and NO easy way to get there. Once in the hospital they gave more fluids and monitored, my numbers came way up, back to normal and I was released.
Had some spaghetti and meatballs last night with a PowerAid, felt good to get solid food!
I already had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Ferber Friday morning so I guess we will regroup and see if it was just dehydration, a reaction to the med or what he thinks and where we will go from here.
Today I had coffee and a breakfast sandwich and a chicken sandwich for lunch, took the dogs out for a walk and some fresh air. Hope to see the family for dinner tonight.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!