Long Haul at MDACC

Joe is still an in patient at MDACC and continues chemotherapy. Amazingly he still has not had any adverse effects physically though his blood counts are moving all over the place.

Saturday moved so slowly that I thought the clocks were broken. I was to a point to overdosing on football. The TV in the room is up to the ceiling so one must look up to view it which is tiring after awhile especially since I have that darn bulging disc in the C6-C7 area of the neck. Just sitting in a chair is painful and reaching for anything is excruciating. I have pain pills but they do not give you many so I try to ration them out.

To escape boredom and depression, I decided to explore the empty corridors of the hospital. On the weekend it is spooky with the lights dimmed down and no one walking around. I started to feel like I was in a movie " A Night in the Hospital Halls ". If someone had opened a door, I am sure both of us would have screamed bloody murder. I found the 6th floor patient/caregiver laundromat and beauty shop. There was a person doing laundry but I left them alone so I would not scare the heck out of them. I decided to use the cross bridge to the Rotary House which is a hotel for MDACC patients and caregivers. It is a long cross way bridge over the road and at dusk one could see the colored sky and the lights of the cars in a parade down the streets. The cross way links the second floor to each building so one does not have to cross the busy street or get into inclement weather. I entered the area of the Rotary House where there is a restaurant and lo and behold a real bar with alcohol. Just what I needed. It had a very nice setting with just a few people having drinks and dinner. I sat at the bar and treated myself to a glass of Pinot Grigio and a very good French Onion Soup. I slowly enjoyed both items. It was my Oasis that let me escape for a little while.

When I made it back to the room, the Georgia Bulldog and Tech game was on. At least it was a game that had teams that meant something to me. At halftime Joe said he wanted Chinese Food so I left to go back to the hotel and walk Max. I ordered the food on line from P F Changs and picked it up at 10PM then headed back to Joe. He was so excited about some good tasting food. He loved the Hot and Sour Soup, the Spring Rolls, and Mongolian Beef. The restaurant gave us 10 fortune cookies so I handed them out to the nurses who were on duty. We watched a repeat of Saturday Night Live then called it a night. Joe had finally finished his last Cyclophophamide chemo which took 3 days to complete.

Now it is Sunday in the wee hours where they drew Joe's blood at 5:30AM. It was the first time I woke up during the night. About 8:30 AM the nurse's aid, Miss Grumpy with Loretta Lynn hair, was having issues taking Joe's blood pressure with the machine. She tried it several times. She pulled Joe's bandage from the blood draw 3 hours before. She started to pump up the blood pressure wrap and the puncture point from the blood draw, spurted out. Boy that caused her by surprise. She ran to the bathroom to get those coarse brown paper towels. With Joe's low platelets, he does not clot in 15 minutes like one should. She did not do that again. LOL. Joe and I laughed after she left the room since she was the only person who had issues with the blood pressure machine on Joe.

The Vinstrine chemo took only 15 minutes then they started the "A" chemo whose nickname is the "Red Devil". Yes, the liquid is red in color and the adverse effects are horrific. I read about it the night before and it would scare anyone. I had gone to take care of Max and attend church at St, Philips Presbyterian on San Felipe Blvd when the doctor came but Joe said that he was optimistic with the results so far. The doctor did order two units of red blood since Joe's hemoglobin was down to 7.20 which is very low. Platelets are at 55 so Joe did not need a platelet transfusion. Yeah!

When I got back to be with Joe, we were hoping to be able to watch the Falcon Football game but we were so disappointed that it was not on here locally. Joe could not leave the room and I was not going to go and see it some place when he could not. My oldest son, Keith, had emailed me and ask how things were going. I told him we were still in the hospital and the game was unavailable here. Keith came to the rescue and let us use his on-line Direct TV NFL Package game account. It meant he could not watch it which is a big thing since he could not watch it since we were using it. What a special gift to us and appreciated so much! It helped made the time go faster with being able to watch our team. They won the game over the Green Bay Packers so we were very happy.

About 7:20 PM Joe said he was hungry for some BBQ from Goode'sMcDonalds not having hot fries ready and waiting 15 minutes for them and they forgot the salt. More stupid traffic lights working out of sync. Getting to the parking garage and not being able to find my prepaid parking token. My arms weak from carrying stuff back to the room. In the elevator there was a tall man and I started that I was worn out. He said he knew what I meant. He said he is from Seattle, Washington and he has been flying back and forth since May while his wife has an advanced stage of Ovarian Cancer. Chemo did not work on her for 4 years. They wanted to have her get a Bone Marrow Transplant but the Hutch Hospital would not give it to her but MDACC would thus giving them hope. Her kidneys had shut down and had dialysis and was admitted into ICU. He was arriving from the airport to be with her and she had gained consciousness this afternoon and kidneys were starting to work. He was to fly back out tomorrow to Seattle. Well, that was so sad. So that made me so sad that all my stress accumulated and I had some tears going up the elevator  to the 9th floor. I told Joe the tears was just from stress and just feeling sorry for myself. I needed to be hugged and loved. So we ate our BBQ on the small hospital bed together. For two hours we stayed that way laying next to each other. I just felt so alone.

Since I had to go back to the hotel to take care of Max, I decided to stay the night there to give me a break from the hospital. It just would be too much to go back and forth again. I needed some R and R or I should say ESCAPE.

So that is it. Good night, God be with you.