I have determined that this blog now serves another purpose. In addition to keeping family members and friends informed and providing help to other people with MS who are considering this procedure, it will also be a lot of help at letting Chris know exactly what happened during this process. After the last few days I have decided that Chris will remember very little of this part of the procedure (probably a good thing) due to high fevers, high amounts of pain medication and just a lot of drugs overall.
Last night was definitely the roughest night ( you may sense this from my last post). We learned that Chris does not do well with morphine. While it did wonders for his pain, with all of the morphine building up throughout the night, he was really freaking out at night. They took him off the pain killer and gave him a drug to calm him down. He ended up having a bad reaction to this drug and in addition to the morphine, he became extremely anxious and disoriented When I came back from getting dinner he was extremely angry and convinced that his IV pump was broken (at this point he wasn't even hooked up to it). They gave him a bunch of sedatives and asked me to leave the room while they calmed him down. By 4:00 am I was able to come back in his room and he was a lot better.
They continued to give him anti-anxiety medication throughout the day until the morphine is out his system. They have switched him to Fentanyl, which is short lasting. The benefit of this drug is that it will not stay in his system long and therefore he is less likely to get the negative side effects from it.
Today was a much quieter day. Chris got to have a shower, which really made him feel a lot better. It probably didn't hurt that he had me and two other nurses helping him out since he was pretty drugged up.
His counts stayed relatively the same:
WBC: 0.1
Hemoglobin: 87
Platelets: 18 (this meant that he did not need to have a platelet infusion today)
Neutrophils: 0.0
I am really hoping for a bone marrow transplant miracle and that all of sudden Chris is going to wake up with a higher WBC and Neutrophil count. Usually the earliest this can happen is Day +10, but since he was so good at growing stem cells with the neupogen last time (see stem cell collection portion of the blog), I just want the same to hold true this time around. We could use some good news and Chris seems to do everything differently.
Coming into this we were told all about the bad side effects of the chemo. Chris really hasn't had any of them, but has invented his own set of symptoms. We were warned about loss of appetite, nausea, extreme fatigue, diarrhea and mucocitis (sores all over your mouth and throat).Other than the infection and fever, Chris has really not been affected by any of the regular symptoms (knock on wood!!), but he has bad pain, anxiety and has trouble sleeping. He really likes to do things his own way, so I just keep hoping that this own way involves an impressive recovery that brings him back to his regular self in time for Christmas. The hardest part for me during this part of the procedure is not being able to talk to" non-drugged-out Chris". I really miss him.
Finally, I would just like to thank our amazing friends that shovelled our driveway today. It was amazing to come home tonight to have one thing taken off my plate. I told Chris and he thought it was pretty cool too.
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Day 11
After all of the excitement of the weekend, we have been trying to be as uneventful as possible. Good for Chris' health, bad for writing a blog.
Chris is still on the painkillers, and every so often believes he is tough enough that he doesn't need to take them anymore and about 15 minutes later changes his mind.
The drugs aren't making him feel the greatest, and he doesn't have much of an appetite. But he did insist on going to the grocery store( i.e. sent me out to the grocery store) so that he could have some chocolate chip cookies in his ice cream. I am not that concerned about his lack of appetite anymore.
We are starting to get excited for the end of the week when Chris will be off of his medication, will have finished his stem cell collection, and will be getting better by the day (instead of getting worse).
For your viewing pleasure we have a link to a W5 piece on the bone marrow stem cell transplant.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20090213/w-five_ms_090213/
Just a few thing to keep in mind when you watch it:
1) Since the death of the MS patient in the clinical trial, there have been changes made to the procedure to make it more safe.
2) The best results have been seen in relapse remitting patients, such as Jennifer Molson (featured in the piece) and Chris
3) The stem cell treatment in China is nothing like the one that Chris is doing
4) W5 is a just a little dramatic sometimes.
Chris is still on the painkillers, and every so often believes he is tough enough that he doesn't need to take them anymore and about 15 minutes later changes his mind.
The drugs aren't making him feel the greatest, and he doesn't have much of an appetite. But he did insist on going to the grocery store( i.e. sent me out to the grocery store) so that he could have some chocolate chip cookies in his ice cream. I am not that concerned about his lack of appetite anymore.
We are starting to get excited for the end of the week when Chris will be off of his medication, will have finished his stem cell collection, and will be getting better by the day (instead of getting worse).
For your viewing pleasure we have a link to a W5 piece on the bone marrow stem cell transplant.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20090213/w-five_ms_090213/
Just a few thing to keep in mind when you watch it:
1) Since the death of the MS patient in the clinical trial, there have been changes made to the procedure to make it more safe.
2) The best results have been seen in relapse remitting patients, such as Jennifer Molson (featured in the piece) and Chris
3) The stem cell treatment in China is nothing like the one that Chris is doing
4) W5 is a just a little dramatic sometimes.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
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!
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!
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