Thursday, September 08, 2005

This is the A-Game

Let me first apologize to everybody out there that’s been waiting around for me to update this blog, but it’s been a really busy week, and by busy, of course, I mean I’ve been combing the hospital for people to harass. On a serious note, everything has been going well here. Came into the ER last Monday with a slight fever which turned out to be from an infection at the site of my last surgery. So, they decided to go ahead and do the chemo and load me up with antibiotics at the same time to fight both these nasty skanks in my body. Mandy flew in from San Diego and little Amanda came down from College Station, which made the time go by super fast, and of course little Bobby was on stand-by for regular and scheduled abuse. The nausea has been a little better this time, so I’m actually eating a few times a day, and my hair hasn’t seemed to fall out yet either, although I’m not gonna tell ya I couldn’t use the time off from shaving.


The antibiotics are really strong, and caused some kind of reaction that is strangely similar to being rolled in cornflakes and honey. The friends describe it more of a chicken-pox type rash. To each his own. Doc says I’ll be on the antibiotics for another couple of weeks or so, so I should be baking up some bread in no time… all the signs are pointing that direction. Also looks like I’m going to have to go back into surgery for the leg- it keeps filling up with fluid, which is why the infection started in the first place. They’ve drained it once already, but it’s going to have to be drained again soon. Good news is I have no feeling between my hip and my knee, so they can drain that main vein all they want as long as it gets me outta here sooner. Booby’s got some pics of the room, hopefully he can post some of them up. The atmosphere has made all the difference.



After a week of fighting my veins (the chemo is really bad on them) and resisting getting a port (which is a surgical procedure that puts and IV in your neck or chest) Dan the Man Chemo Nurse finally talked me into a PICC line, which has helped out significantly. It’s just a plastic tube that starts in my upper arm and ends in the anterior vena cava, but it makes IVs and blood draws like butter (no more painful sticks or digging for veins). We’ll try to get pics of the arms- heroine chic is SO chic! So anyway, I’m here for at least another 5 days so feel free to call, although the chemo has dropped my protein levels way low, which means I’m sleeping about 14 hours a day (not counting naps)- but I’d love to have the phone calls, I promise.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So maybe while you're spending all this time in the hospital, you could get some rehab and lay off the heroin a little bit...just an idea. It's 3:49a and this is the refugee shelter manager extraordinaire signing off...KK

Anonymous said...

Tell nurse Dan to bring his cash b/c I am on my way and mama needs to pay rent!!! Luv Panda

i2y

I'm Too Young For This!