Day 10 (and the end of Day 9)

Oh what a night!

So after we spent yesterday telling you how great Chris was doing, we spent another night in the hospital last night. What is it about us and midnight on weekends? But, before we get into the story, I just want to assure you all that Chris is doing much better today and is sitting beside me while I write this.

In our last post, we mentioned that Chris was starting to get some bone pain ( in his lower back, neck, and hips). Well at about 7:00pm it started getting worse, so he took codeine. About two hours later it was getting much worse, so he took a second pill. By 10:30, he was in so much pain that he tried to fall asleep, but by 11:00 he still was unable to sleep, and took another two pills. Still nothing and it was just getting worse and worse, to the point that he was spasming and his legs were buckling out. He described the pain as someone hitting his taibone with a sledge hammer and feeling it all the way into neck. During this time, he also developed a cough and a borderline fever. So after I made a quick  emergency call to his hematologist, we were heading down highway 417 at midnight on our way to the emergency room.

Chris' doctor called ahead to the emergency room and when we arrived there they had him in a bed in the Observation room within 5 minutes. They gave him a needle and an IV drip of a drug called hydromorphone, a drug similar to morphine, but it is about 4 times stronger. The drug kicked in within 15 minutes and his pain level was down from a 10 to about a 6 within a half hour. They also tested his blood, monitored his vitals and did a chest x-ray to ensure he did not have a blood or lung infection. His fever was borderline, but since his white blood cell count was still relatively high, they gave us a perscription for the oral hydromorphone.

One thing they mentioned was that this drug can cause nausea. We discovered that this was in fact true when Chris was leaving the hospital and at the Shoppers Drug Mart at about 3:30 in the morning.

Please try and picture this:  It is 3:30 in the morning and we are at a Shoppers Drug Mart trying to get a fairly large prescription of narcotics and Chris is having what looks like withdrawl symptoms in the waiting area. It made for an interesting night.

It was 4:30 before we went to bed that night (or morning?) and we had to get up at 8:30 to give Chris his next injection of neupogen and more pain killers. We ended up sleeping until 12:45. Chris is still taking the maximum dosage for pain, but he is doing MUCH better (although his head is a little foggy).

So this is now the second time we have been to the hospital at midnight on a weekend. I can only hope we aren't there next weekend. The emergency room at midnight on a weekend already has enough strange characters in it, and I can only predict that it is ten times worse when you bring Halloween into the equation!

Day 4 (And the end of Day 3)

First, here are some photos of Chris getting chemo in his private room yesterday.

Second,  it turns out that Chris and I jinxed ourselves with our last blog post. Remember how we said that Chris was doing great? Well he is doing well again, but we hit our first low last night.

As we mentioned before, as part of Chris' first chemo treatment, he needed to drink and go to the bathroom every hour last night to ensure that the chemo did not damage his bladder and got out of his system. This worked well while we were at the hospital and Chris was getting hydration through an IV, but for some reason after 7:00 last night it didn't matter how much Chris drank, he could not go to the bathroom. Five hours later, a nauseous, bloated, and hurting Chris was admitted to the hospital. They gave him hydration through his IV again and ran a bunch of tests to make sure his kidneys were working.

The good news? His kidneys are fine and after a long night and getting sick a few times, Chris was back to normal again by noon and out of the hospital by 2:30.

The not-as-good news? They aren't sure why he reacted that way to the chemo. We also got about 2 hours of sleep last night, which has made for a quiet day today.

We start giving Chris his injections to boost his stem cells tomorrow.