Joe texted me that Romaquera was releasing Joe from the hospital today.Whoopee! I texted then called Joe. He did not know his counts but they must be okay. The Fellow with Romaguera cautioned that many pieces had to fit together for Joe to be released since a pharmacy person would have to go over medications and get new ones submitted/ The Case worker would have to contact Caremark and Applied Home Health Care to coordinate the delivery and instructions of the antibiotic IV that I would have to give Joe for five days. As the day went on, we knew that it would be in the evening that Joe would be released so the medical staff decided that they should do the IV of the antibiotic starting at 6PM and would end at 7PM since it could not be arranged to have the IV and supplies delivered this afternoon to our hotel. It was fine with us since we were both so happy that Joe was getting released today which was not expected by us.
When I got to the hospital room with Joe's bag of current meds the pharmacist was going over the meds one by one. Some will be omitted and destroyed and new ones in their place plus some new ones. It is quite something to keep up with all of it. I highly recommend a pill organizer that covers four times a day or it would be impossible to keep it all straight. As that was being called in, I made arrangements with Applied Home Healthcare to deliver the IV meds and supplies by noon Thursday. I went down to the 2nd floor pharmacy to put up the called in drugs and also get 2 new boxes of heparin used to flush Joe's CVC lines daily. The IV antibiotic that will be given for 5 days is called DAPTOmycin 400mg, after heta is done Joe will take Doxcycline 100mg twice a day for 7 days. In addition to those antibiotics Joe will take AZITHromycin 500 mg once a day for two months as well as Ethambutol 1200mg also once a day for 2 months. The later two are for the stubborn germ mycobacterium gordonae in his lungs. There are lots of other drugs he takes also besides the antibiotics. He will take Neupogin for just three days since his counts are on the upswing.
By the time I got to Joe's room again, a copy of the blood test was in. Here are a few of the counts.
White Blood Cells 2.0 (low) bu much improved from day before
Red Blood Cells 4.99 (normal)
Hemoglobin 14.4 (normal)
Hematocrit 44.5 (normal)
Platelets 69 (low but stable)
Absolute Neutrophil .89 (low but above ,5 which allowed Joe's release from hospital)
Joe finished his IV of antibiotics at 7PM and we left the room at 7:30PM. Joe just glowed with happiness. He strutted down the hall like John Travolta. Joe requested to eat at CHUYS Mexican Restaurant which was jammed pack with people but luckily we had a corner booth away from other people. It was finally raining in Houston after 57 days of none and Joe enjoyed the rain also.
We go to the studio at about 9PM. I started to get the drugs together to put them in the organizer. There were three that had to be thrown away. After an hour of setting it up, I realized that the three new antibiotics were missing. Pharmacy never gave them to me. Since he pharmacy closed at 8PM and it was now 10PM, there was nothing that I could do. I even paged the on floor pharmacist and she told me that she did call it in but since it was so late, I would have to wait till tomorrow to get it resolved. I was peeved that the drugs were not given since Joe was suppose to take a dose tonight of each of them. If I had not meretriciously went over the pills I had and the list from the hospital, I would have not realized they were missing. A lesson learned for all of us caregivers.
Joe fell asleep right away at 10:15PM. He is always s exhausted when he comes home after an in hospital visit. I am beat too but I know so many of you are anxious to know what happens so thus you got this blog tonight.
Tomorrow we have an 8AM appointment with FastTrack for a blood draw then a visit with Lymphoma medical staff. I will get the drug situation straight and try to find out who caused the goof.
Thank you for your heartfelt prayers since Joe is on the road to recovery and "home."
Ciao!
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