Day +2 - Massage

Wednesday July 18, 2012
Quail Run Lot 15
Moffitt Cancer Center room 3715

 

The lovely sound of rain on the roof makes it difficult to want to get up out of bed this morning.  I’m sure if I weren’t spending my days in a hospital room, I’d be getting sick of the rain but it sounds soothing and soporific this morning.

Since the major eater is no longer eating here I find that I need to cook up some of the food in the refrigerator in order for it to last long enough for me to eat it.  The greens are looking limp.  So I take care of that, get myself some breakfast, talk to a couple of friends who call this morning and get my food packed up to take in to the hospital.  I bring some clean pillow cases for David’s orthopedic pillow.  I gave one to him and one to Carrie several years ago for Yule after my chiropractor recommended it to me and I loved mine.   They love theirs too.  But Moffitt only supplies linens for their beds and pillows.  That’s OK, no problem. 

I don’t like to leave myself a mess to come home to so I have to clean up all the dishes and pans from cooking.  I find our little blue compost bin is full so that needs to be emptied.   And with all the rain, I have to go up on the roof again to sweep off the water that is collecting on the slide toppers.

Eventually I get everything together and throw my three bags over my shoulders and am out the door and on the road for the 30 minute drive to the hospital

When I open the door, it is dark inside and soothing music fills the air.
Here is what I see.  Actually she was doing his arms but moved to his feet by the time I get my camera out and her permission to post her picture.

Looks nice doesn’t it?  I am very pleased that Moffitt does not expect these caregivers to volunteer their time.  They are paid to provide these services to the patients.

 

David’s had a rough night Tuesday.  He was up every 45 minutes with painful urination.  Apparently one or both of the medicines given him for the hiccups or nausea has given him the symptoms of a UTI.  They checked and he doesn’t have one so they’ve taken him off the baclofen and compazine and put him on flowmax.  They have him on a four hour iv drip of saline when I arrive.  The masseuse has to work around that and has no problem.

 

 

Everything is back to the current new normal and he’s feeling pretty good at this hour.  His numbers have dropped again today, especially his white blood cells.  As you can see they have dropped to 1.73 from 5.5 yesterday and from a high of 8.18 on Sunday.

Last night his night nurse, Miguel, went over the calendar between now and probable discharge.  So we have a good idea what to expect.  His numbers will continue to drop.  Side effects like nausea, diarrhea and mouth sores may increase as the numbers reach nadir sometime this week-end.  Hopefully around next Monday they will begin to give him neupogen again to encourage his stem cells to multiply just like they did before collecting them originally.   Once the numbers start back up his hair will begin to fall out and he’ll have to decide whether to have his head shaved or just let it fall at will.

So the other notes on the calendar now read GOSF on Monday the 23rd, Day +7.  This is when they are speculating he will be ready for neupogen to encourage his stem cells.  This may cause fevers on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Hopefully his numbers will begin to to up again on Thursday July 26.  Increased baldness is predicted to begin on Saturday July 28.   If all goes well, discharge from the hospital could be on the 31st. Then it’s off to the half way house where I really will be on duty 24/7.  Lucky for me the nurses and techs are doing most everything now other than running errands and chiding him for not chewing enough ice, not drinking enough water.  Mostly, I’m just providing the entertainment.

 

None of this is set in stone since every patient responds differently but this week-end will be the telling days for the really uncomfortable side effects as the cell numbers drop to zero.

 

The masseuse leaves and his technician arrives to do vital signs.  Soon thereafter his lunch is delivered.  He’s having spaghetti, garlic bread, green beans, fresh fruit salad and water.  He says he can still taste things and the hospital food service gets good marks.  Hospital food is notoriously bad, at least at the University of Virginia, but he says not so much here.  Good news!

 

Around 3:3O, a harpist and the art therapist show up together at the door while David is in the bathroom just after he gets unplugged from the 4 hours of saline drip.  I apologize and ask them if they can come back since he really must get his 2nd march around the horseshoe in before it gets too late.  They both say no problem.  The harpist says she can come back tomorrow and the art therapist says Friday.  

 

That sounds much better to me anyway.  Why have all 3 of your fun alternative therapies in one day.  One a day sounds much better so I’m glad I’ve made that executive decision.

 

We are off on the march around the horse shoe by 4:00.  We do 6 “laps”.  Remember that’s twice the horse shoe per lap. He says he did 5 before I got her this morning.  So he only has to do it once more before bedtime.  We often pass other patients on these round and rounds.  None are walking as fast as we are.  If he can do it, I want him to do it so I set a pace and tell him to let me know when it’s too fast or he’s becoming tired.  No Carrie it is not as fast a pace as I normally walk.  J

 

 

When we get back from the walk he does his lung exercises.  This little machine is called a respiratory spirometer.  You empty your lungs and then breathe in through the apparatus trying to keep the little ball on the right in the middle of its column by drawing a steady breath while at the same time raising the big blue cylinder to the top.  The cylinder is graduated to show how much air volume you are taking in.  A healthy person can send it to the top drawing in a full 2500 ml.  When he finds he can’t do that consistently then he’ll have to practice and exercise to retain his lung capacity, possibly using this little thing 10 times an hour.  For now he is just checking to make sure he can do it.  And he can.

 

 

After all this exercise he takes a short nap. Notice the new socks.  These are no-slip sox which he does have to wear if he is not wearing shoes in his room.  But when he goes out into the hall way he must have shoes on.

 

When he wakes dinner is still not here and he has some crackers to keep his stomach happy while he waits.  Dinner seems to be getting later and later each day for some reason.  It started out being at 4:45 and has slowly slipped away.  Today it arrives at 5:50pm which is about as late as they ever serve.  No matter for us since that’s when he normally eats at home anyway.  6-6:30 pm. 

 

  

And now, to your questions:

Several commenters asked about masks.  First let me say that you are not permitted on this floor if you have a cough or a cold or anything that might even hint at a virus or bacteria.

David’s situation is immunosupressed at this point.  He does not have an infection luckily.  So no one has to wear suits or masks to be in the room but they all wash their hands upon entering and none of them touches him or anything he has touched unless they have gloves on. 
Of course the massage therapist is excepted here.  She uses antibacterial creams.

I did see the harpist suiting up to go into a patient’s room and that’s because that patient does have an infection and they do not want to bring it into anyone else’s room so the suits and masks are destroyed when they come out of that patient’s room. 

We have been told numerous times that people don’t actually get a virus or any bacteria from the air unless of course someone sneezes in your face.  Nearly everything comes from their hands to your hands to you.  You touch something like a grocery cart or a door handle that someone with a germ or virus has touched and then you rub your eyes or put your finger in your mouth for any reason. BINGO!   So wash often.  That’s the real way to keep germs at bay.

Unless things really crash, he won’t be bubbilized as Roxanne put it.
Annie, he does get to keep those AWESOME sox.  He has purple, yellow and now 2 pair of green.  Sadly there are no more colors to collect.

His “eau de corn” was very short lived.  One day.  He didn’t smell it at all today.  Some folks have it as much as a week.  Some smell  like garlic.

I am extremely happy that so many of you are following along with us and commenting.  I’m amazed that you seem to like all this detail but that’s good since it’s the only thing I have to write about at this point.  Those comments make my day.  Thank you so much.  Keep them coming.