Last Monday, the 22nd, I stayed at home and rested after 5 1/2 days in the hospital. I went to work from 10:00 to 5:00 on Tuesday, and from 8:00 to 1:15 on Wednesday. Overall, I was feeling pretty good those days, with the exception of some aches and pains in my joints and muscles, predominantly my hips and back. Wednesday afternoon, I went in to have a check-up, receive my third dose of Velcade and my second of Cytoxan (both chemo drugs), and check my blood and electrolyte levels. All was looking pretty good. And then...
Wednesday night, I went to bed feeling really fatigued. I woke up around 1:15 feeling nauseous. After sitting and kneeling by the porcelain throne for about 15 minutes, my time was at hand. Everything I had consumed since dinner (at least) came up and out. Aside from the foul taste in my mouth, I actually felt a little better after I was done, contrary to my norm. I usually feel more nauseous as a product of the process, the "taste" and the effects of the violent heaving my body goes through. Noelle says she always feels better. For the first time in my life, I almost understood. We took my temperature, and found I was at about 100 degrees - just below the 100.4 which is the trigger for a phone call to the BMT staff. I took an anti-nausea pill and went back to bed. My nausea subsided a little through the duration of the night, but my sleep was fitful at best, and I continued to hang out about 100 degrees. Then I woke up at 5:45, went to the bathroom, and realized I was feeling better overall. I decided to check my temperature...102.2! I was bummed. So, so bummed. Noelle called the BMT Triage Nurse line and they asked to have me come in immediately. Well, 6:00 a.m. isn't particularly the easiest time for Noelle and I to just hop in the car and run down to the hospital, so we called Jeff, who got ready for work (very early) and took me in.
By the time I got in to the hospital on Thursday morning, it was 7:00 and they were opening the clinic. They brought me in and Jeff left. They began by checking my vitals, and what do you know? My temperature was a whopping 97.8 degrees. Yeah, I know. I was thinking, "If only I had waited an hour and checked my temperature again, I could have avoided this visit. I'm fine now." Uh...wrong. I believe the spike in my fever at the time it came was a tender mercy of my Heavenly Father to get me into the hospital. After a couple hours of tests, which were inconclusive as to what was causing my fever in the first place, Dr. Ford (my new medical best friend) suggested we have some chest x-rays done. What do you know? Pneumonia. I was admitted to the hospital and told I'd be there at least 48 hours - probably 72. I explained that my daughter had a baptism on Saturday afternoon, and they said they'd see what they could do to get me there, perhaps "on a pass." So, back to prayers and faith...
By Friday afternoon, I was being told that if I could steer clear of further fevers and my Saturday morning chest x-rays were the same as or better than Thursday's, then I could be given a full discharge before the baptism and put on antibiotics that could be easily administered at home. Now, more focused prayers and faith...
Saturday morning I felt great, was fever-free, and sure they'd let me go. My chest x-rays were done a few minutes after 8:00, and I was incredibly anxious to get the good news of my official discharge. The wait over the following hour was excruciating, but finally, mercifully, came the words I needed to hear. After my fourth and final dose of Velcade on this chemo cycle, followed by a 30-minute infusion of antibiotics at around 10 or 10:30, I would be discharged and set up with Home Health for an IV placement and home administration of an IV antibiotic and a pill-form antibiotic over the coming 7 days. Noelle and I ultimately got home a little after noon.
Shave, shower, eat something. Dressed and ready to go by 2:30 for the 3:00 baptismal service. I was moving pretty slowly after a couple days in the hospital (par for the course, I'm learning), but there was no way I'd have missed the opportunity to baptize my daughter for the world. Not only did I baptize Jenna as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and bestow upon her the Gift of the Holy Ghost, I sang the song I wrote for Abby's baptism 4 1/2 years ago ("Follow Me Into the Water"), and our family sang "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" together. By the end of it all, I was very, very tired. My body hurt, and it was hard to walk or stand. The Lord helped me get through what I needed to, then I was done. As soon as the closing prayer was over, my mother drove me home so I could rest and avoid contact with well-wishers and children who could expose me to stuff I can't afford to be exposed to.
Saturday night, I watched the Giants go up 3-0 on the Detroit Tigers in a World Series almost no one expected the Giants to win, and went to bed.
Sunday, the 28th of October, was Noelle's 37th birthday. That morning, I got up and dressed in time to go to church just for Sacrament Meeting, as it was the annual Primary Program, with music and the spoken word given by the children under 12. The four younger kids did pretty well, and Michael was part of a bell choir on one song. That was pretty cool and he did really well with it. I sat there in church with my hospital-grade, filtered face mask on, as I was surrounded by a bunch of adults and children breathing who-knows-what into the air around me. Sunday afternoon, I had an appointment with a Home Health nurse at about 1:00, who would come in and place an IV in my arm that would last me until the middle of the week. Around Wednesday, it would be replaced with another one to last me through Saturday, when my last IV antibiotic was to be given. If only it had gone that way...
Tina (the nurse) came. Her first attempt failed. The vein just wouldn't take the needle. On the second site she attempted, the needle went into the vein and then blew. In other words, instead of the needle poking a neat little hole in the vein for the IV catheter to feed through, the vein wall would split open, leaving antibiotic or saline or anything else to go into the muscle and fat tissue in the arm instead of into the vein itself. No good. So, Tina got on the phone and got a second nurse scheduled to come out to try and get me going. Tami showed up around 3:30. She tried one vein; it blew. After a heated rice pack to open things up and some time to help the veins calm down (they were spasming and very unhappy), on the fourth try of the day, she finally got an IV in that looked good. She helped me get hooked up to my antibiotic around 4:30, and prepared to go. Then, before leaving, she said casually, "Tina got your vitals earlier, didn't she?" "Uh...no." "Oh. She was supposed to." She took my blood pressure, which was understandably high (go figure, after what I'd been through), and then checked my temperature. It was over 101 degrees! Ugh! That typically means we need to call the triage nurse and possibly have to go back to the hospital. I was so, so angry. I saw myself going BACK to the hospital for the third time in two weeks, and only a day after leaving. If the IV hadn't been in my right wrist, I would have thrown something (I throw like a pansy with my left hand). I went out to the living room to try to calm myself down. All I could think was, 'I'm ruining Noelle's birthday.' Noelle and I decided that it was possible I had simply gotten so worked up and my body had gotten so taxed by all the poking and prodding in my already bruised and sensitive arms, that my fever had shot up because of it. We decided to wait a couple hours and see what happened. Later that evening, Noelle got on the phone with Steve, the PA working at BMT. He told her that because I was already on a couple different antibiotics, and wasn't experiencing any chills or any other "sick" symptoms, she should just watch me through the night and give him a call if those conditions changed or if the fever didn't go down by morning.
Around the time the San Francisco Giants scored what proved to be the winning run in the decisive 4th game of their World Series sweep of the Detroit Tigers, I broke into a sweat that lead to my fever breaking. I was able to sleep through the night in relative peace. Monday I didn't even consider going into work after what my body had been through the couple days before. Monday afternoon, around 4:00, I went to flush out my IV in anticipation of my next antibiotic dose, and what happened? By now, you should know the answer: the vein blew and I realized I needed a new IV...again. We called Home Health and they said Tami and another nurse (Karen) were out together that night and that they'd be by around 7:00. So, two more nurses came together to attempt to solve the problem with John's veins. Three potential IV sites later, they congratulated one another on how marvelous they were for finding a second "good" site in SEVEN attempts over two days. "This one will hold for as many days as you need it," they said. Then they flushed it and hooked me up to my antibiotic and said farewell. About 10 minutes or so later, I began to feel a burning sensation near my new IV. Would you believe it (yes, you probably would believe it by now)? The vein had...wait for it...blown. My sister in law, Rachelle, who is a nurse at Primary Children's Hospital, came over to take a look at it. After she and Noelle got on the phone with the BMT folks, they decided to have Rachelle pull the useless IV and take care of it today when I came into the clinic for a follow-up on my pneumonia. I told Rachelle and Noelle I was done trying with IVs and just wanted a PICC. They set me up to come in to the hospital a couple hours before my clinic appointment so I could get a PICC placed.
What is a PICC? It's a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. In my case, it enters my body into the vein that runs along the inside of my arm between the biceps and triceps, then up through my shoulder and chest, and emptying down into the vein just next to my heart, where the vein is huge, and the blood flow is so intense it will diffuse the meds going into it virtually instantaneously. The process of placing the PICC line was not terribly painful, but now that it's over, I can just say how happy I am. No more pokes, pricks or prods in my arms for quite some time. It will take some getting used to, having a couple little tubes hanging out of my inner arm. But it's a much easier way to go, compared to wondering if the next IV will take or not, and if so, for how long before it blows.
So now, I'm heading back to work tomorrow, on my second attempt to restore some semblance of normalcy since chemo began two weeks ago tomorrow. I'm so grateful for all of the prayers, fasting, love and support from family, friends, co-workers and neighbors who support me and my family through this journey. I just don't know how we'd do it without them.
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