So I came home on 7.31 from Round #6 and was not due to go back to the hospital till 8.25 for Round #7. My last 3 rounds are now about 28 days apart. I was due to get my blood tested on Thursday 8.4. However, by Wednesday, I had mucicitis (sores in mouth and throat). My throat hurt pretty bad and eating or drinking was almost impossible. I was able to double my pain medicine dose, but that only took the edge off. I slept most of the day, so by the afternoon, both my mom and hospital nurse thought I should go get my blood tested to ensure I was not in need of additional blood (anemic). Blood results came back ok, but I spiked a temperature of 101.3, so off to emergency at Valley Care I went (anything over 101 is immediate admittance). My mom tried to negotiate us driving directly to UCSF, but to no avail. 3 hours later, its Ambulance Ride #3 to UCSF. Same driver and nurse as the last ride, continuity is good.
It is now Friday and my throat is still really sore, still no eating or drinking. I never would have imagined how much saliva a mouth can produce and a throat needs to swallow. The hospital has a solution for every situation. At my bedside is a "dentist suction tube" at my disposal. No swallowing or spitting required. My counts have slowly started to rebound and by tomorrow I expect to feel much better, with hopes of going home on Sunday.
Port update - learned yesterday that my port goddess nurse, Sally will be going on materity leave beginning Saturday. Really?? couldn't those twins have waited a little longer.
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This is the port that is under my skin
and has been so difficult to access |
Wednesday admitting at UCSF was not as planned. ValleyCare emergency is no longer allowed to touch my port. They have tried on the two prior visits and failed to access it, so now I get an IV there. So my master plan was to come to UCSF with my IV and negotiate waiting till Thursday morning, when Sally would be working, to have my port accessed. The resident on duty was not so thrilled with the idea. After a while of negotiation, my nurse going to bat for me, and the attending getting involved, my port had to be accessed that night.
2 reasons being, they need to take a culture from the port to ensure there is no bacteria growing in the line and the second reason is that they want antibiotics running thru it in case there is. I was not happy about this at all... What I was able to get though was some serious drugs to sedate me (Ativan and Verset topped with Benadryl after it was done and I was already on Morphine for the pain). Don't remember the access part very well at all and now have a new protocal for future accesses. Needless to say, Curtis did a great job and succeeded on the first try.
