Upper East Side - Day 2

4:15 AM - I'm on an airbed and it keeps my keister moving through the night.  It's actually pretty comfy, if not just a little noisy.  CT scan is scheduled for noon today and I'm eyes wide open baby.  I made the mistake of putting "CT dye" down as an allergy when in actuality, it just makes me nauseous.  Tried as I did to explain my administrative error to several doctors, my mistake landed me with 12 hrs of IV pre-meds.  I just found that "permanent record" our grade school teachers warned us about.

An over zealous 2nd year radiation resident banned me from eating anything last night past 6pm.  "Dr, if I can make an appeal.  I had chemo today.  If I was scheduled for major surgery tomorrow, I would be permitted to eat until midnight.  You can't slip me a yogurt?". 

"No." 

I suppose if God forbid they see something that needs immediate intervention following the scan, they don't have to worry about clearing my stomach before anesthesia, but it's 6pm. 6 PM!!  Someone's having open heart surgery tomorrow and I bet he's having a ham sandwich before bed!

My chest port has been temperamental the past 2 weeks and for the second time, a highly skilled nurse was able to ninja his way into my swollen arms to land a vein in one shot as an IV back up.  I worry my blood is made of hot fudge.  SPOILER:  I will find out later today that my infection + fall = blood clot around port. 

5:00AM - Lou's up and we just took an early morning stroll around the floor.  Patients are required to wear a mask and gloves when they leave their room since it's flu season.  Place is a little intense, but they also asked me which morning paper I would prefer to read and they have the better two sided non-skid socks I prefer, and they do cure cancer, so I'll let it slide.

7:33 AM:  The nurse just came in to advise me that I'll start drinking the barium cocktail around 10am.  I do hope they serve it in a chilled Margarita glass with a wedge of lime.  It's not the grossest thing I've ever had to drink, but there's a reason no one carries "Cherry Barium flavored" anything.


Let's get some praise on.  Peter Furler - "I'm Alive"

 

 

 

 

10:51AM - On third glass of Raspberry crystal light-like barium beverage.  Thanks CT Scan for ruining raspberries for at least a year.  Could be worse - at least it's not the chalk "smoothie" I anticipated.  They just hooked up my IV Benadryl as the last CT scan pre-med.

 

11:30AM - "Hi, I'm from music therapy.  I'm wondering if you're interested in our services.  I have musical instruments outside if you would like to use them or we can bring people in to play them".  I am now completely high as a kite.  I struggled to look out of the door and sure enough she had a huge Yamaha keyboard and supplies.  "Do you have any CD's?" I asked.  I think I offended her.  She'll come back another time.

 

12:00PM - I stroked my fingers through my hair as I was wheeled to the CT scan.  A handful of hair came out with it.  Ladies, if you can remember the moment you realized you had your first period, that moment you knew life would never be the same again, this period was real and it's happening,  it was kind of like that.  I ordered about 4 hats the other day.  Depending on how fast this goes down, I'm having my stylist buzz it off. 

 

1:00PM - Two of my favorite people are here and they have food and I'm not allowed to eat yet.  My cousin brought me a box of Rainbow Cookies from Café Roma last night.  They're getting stale by the second.  So...hungry...

 

Sometime in the afternoon - "Hi, I'm here to take you down for the EKG".  My nurse just added steroids to my IV line.  I'm now hungry on steroids.  Awesome!  Let's get my rage down to cardiology!

 

4:15PM - Just returned from cardiology.  I CAN EAT!!  This means two things - no surgical procedure is on the horizon and I CAN EAT!!  Two rainbow cookies please, get the hospital menu and where's the soup and sandwich Jenny and Karyn brought?!  Let's do this!

 

5:00PM - I was just served a vegetable spring roll with duck sauce, side salad with blue cheese dressing, beef short ribs with baked potato and string beans - with fresh herb garnish.  I think you could have served me cat food on a cracker and I wouldn't have cared but seriously, if a friend prepared this for me, I'd ask for the recipe.  And my parents are here with clean clothes.  It's happy time.

 

I met with several doctors and nurse practitioners throughout the day.  While I am experiencing another clotting issue common with gynecological cancers, we're looking towards switching up my blood thinner - no surgery, no port removal right now.  We'll know it's working when we start to see elbows and knuckles again.  We're praying it works.