A Very Rough Night

Yesterday I had my Hickman catheter removed as planned. I was taken away to the OR around 2pm and brought back to my room around 5pm. The whole experience was quite traumatic. I didn’t feel any pain or remember anything, but it was very difficult for me to part with something that has been a part of me for so long. I even asked the surgeon to save my Hickman, which he did. I have it in a little cup by my bedside as a reminder of how much use I was able to get out of it. To think that I took such good care of it and fought so hard to keep it for so long is quite difficult.

I was told that after it was removed, I would be receiving all my medications orally so that I wouldn’t need an IV until a new Hickman was inserted. Well, when I got back from the OR they had started an IV on my hand and they proceeded to tell me they were going to be using it and didn’t want to remove it. I was furious and it actually stopped functioning in the middle of the night. This morning I talked to the team of doctors about not having it in and they said I had to have some sort of IV in case of an emergency. This afternoon the one on my hand was removed and a trauma nurse inserted a new one by my elbow. It’s not being used, it’s only for emergencies and blood draws.

Due to all the trauma from yesterday, I had one of the hardest nights to date. Because I’m still in a double room, Chris is not able to stay the entire night and finally left around 2:30am. I didn’t sleep the whole night and was a complete mess. I wasn’t even able to remove my oxygen at all or get out of bed except to use the restroom (with assistance). This afternoon I gradually started to feel a little better. I had a really good respiratory therapist do my treatment, which helped a lot. I was also able to take a shower and even get up to walk around the unit once (with the oxygen tank trailing behind).

I was just told a few minutes ago that I will be having a CT scan done tomorrow morning. I’m not sure why, I was not informed as to the reason. I hope something bad didn’t show up on my last chest x-ray that I wasn’t informed about.

My platelets also finally went up today (120), which my doctors were all happy about. I’m sure part of it has to do with a platelet transfusion I got yesterday before my procedure, but regardless they’re a little more relieved. The plan if all goes well is to possibly start chemo on Monday or Tuesday.

This morning I got a great surprise…a visit from my BMT doctor! He happens to be on duty this weekend and since I’m in the BMT unit he came by to see me. He told me I looked great considering everything I’ve gone through (I think he was just being extra nice) and said to hang in there because he’s working on getting his new trial FDA approved and I’m first on his list to try it out. It would involve using my donor’s frozen cells and he’s very optimistic that I could benefit from it.