Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Happy Veterans Day & Treatment #7 Update: Medical talk included
This pic is from a few years ago but I really like it & wanted to share.I thought that since I'm trying to include a warning about medical stuff I'll be talking about that perhaps I could find an image to use when it comes to that part of the update. It won't always mean that I'm talking in great descriptive detail about things that might seem gross to others but it will include the medical stuff. Hope this helps. Just trying to make it a little easier to navigate through all of this and I am a work in progress and so is my blog. LOL
Had another Treatment Tuesday Nov 10th. Spoke with the doctor and what I don't understand is why no one at the hospital told me that on the chest x-ray they did last Wednesday that they found a lung mass. My doctor said that he wants to give me a little time to get over this cold the rest of the way and do a CT scan before my next appointment in 3 weeks so he has the results to go over with me. He said that it doesn't appear that it should be cancer spreading to my lungs because I haven't had anything else that would indicate that but he had a tumor marker number drawn yesterday and we should get that number back in a week or so. And then the CT scan. I am standing on God's word that no weapon formed against me shall prosper and that God is greater and will do immeasurably more than I could even think or ask for. I would appreciate others standing in agreement with me and also for prayer to help keep my thoughts captive to God so that fear and other thoughts don't try to take over as I am entered into the waiting game of the tumor marker numbers & CT scan & results.On a good test note, the blood tests that they ran for sepsis came up completely free and clear of infection so PRAISE GOD for that result. I actually had no worries about that. I was like 99% sure it would be clear. That 1% was a slight waiver because my flesh was trying to tell me different than my Spirit already knew & I was fighting it, just like I am fighting this lung mass information.
I told my doctor that even though today marked Taxotere treatment #7 which is not an even number, I would like to stop at 7. It is viewed as a holy number, God's perfect number.Seven is the number of completeness and perfection (both physical and spiritual). I told him that I usually like even numbers but that I had been praying about it and feel as though this is the time to stop. He said okay, we will discuss the next options of treatment in 3 weeks. I will still receive the Her2 meds which are perjeta and herceptin every 3 weeks but they don't cause as many side effects for me as the taxotere has. And like I said, I am believing and expecting for the CT scan to be clear in a few weeks
Wrapping this up I will say...today I have 3 days worth of steroids in my body. Adam has only a few days left of vacation, Friday will be a down day for me when my body needs to rest from the taxotere treatment I got yesterday so today is the big work day to get as much done in our house as we can. We were hoping to declutter together but Adam came off of about 5 weeks of pre-load work where he's up at 2:30am and was working 12 hours most days and it isn't even Christmas season yet. It took his body a little longer to get back onto a more normal schedule and we are really hoping to get lots done today. So I'm off to get dressed and start our day. Have a great Wednesday and remember our Veterans.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Was in the hospital
So Gabby went to Youth Convention last weekend and had a great time. She got home around 8:30 and then had some homework to finish so she was up kinda late. When she woke up on Monday morning she wasn't feeling the greatest and I thought it was from being tired. Being a little more compassionate for people not feeling well since being diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago, I allowed her to sleep a little longer and tried to take her to school for 2nd hour. She missed Chorus 1st hour and that was okay. However, when she was going to get out of the van she was very nauseous and by the time we walked into the house again, she was in the bathroom getting rid of that nausea. She started running a fever between 100-almost 102. She missed Tuesday as well but the fever was gone by Wednesday so she went to school.
Warning: Medical talk below....
I had been very cold Tuesday night and didn't sleep much because I was shivering. My alarm clock went off and I got up, took the kids to school. Made myself a shake for breakfast but was really cold so I didn't finish it. Took a shower trying to warm up and then curled up in my bed to get warmer and fell asleep. I slept most of the day. Made Sadie some food and she stayed pretty close to me so I'd wake up and check on her but I was so sleepy. Then Adam got home and I took my temperature. It was up to 101.6. Not good, especially for a person that has been doing chemo treatments. So I called the doctor's office and waited for a call back. They told me they were concerned that my WBC was low and that I needed to have it checked so I should go to the walk in clinic. I did. They checked for strep because my nose was all stuffy and drainage in my throat and it looked nasty. Negative. They did a urine culture and that was negative and instead of sending me to the lab for the blood draws, they opted to send me to the ER. Oh joy!
They got me checked in with Triage and into a room fairly quickly. They had the lab people come to me and they had a hard time accessing my port at first because they didn't have a long enough needle, so we waited for about 15 or 20 minutes until someone could get the right size. They had to collect from 2 different sites so my port and then a poke on my arm because they needed to test my blood to see if I had an infection in my blood which translates pretty much to sepsis. But that test takes 2-3 days to get results back. They did a chest x-ray which was negative, and they did a flu test which was negative. I had been praying and the Tylenol that I had taken before going in started to work and I was feeling more myself. They started an IV to re-hydrate me and I continued to wait. The doctor ended up coming back in to tell me and my mother-in-law that I would need to be admitted overnight in order to figure out what was going on. It is protocol for people that have a fever and have had chemo treatments or something. I was not thrilled to hear this. So my mother-in-law couldn't do anything else with me there and went home to get a few things and went to my house in order to get the kids to bed and get them off to school on Thursday and take care of Sadie on Thursday.
It took until midnight for them to get a bed for me in the hospital and then nearly another hour to get me checked in with a million questions to answer, vitals to be done again and then for me to wait to be seen by the doctor there for an evaluation. I was mostly fine except they hadn't been able to get me any Tylenol to bring the fever back down and I was chilled again. It had been about 9 1/2 hours since I had any and because of the procedures they have in place, I had to wait for the doctor's orders to get into the computer. The doctor was very nice and told me that they planned to keep me until they got the blood test back whether I had an infection in my blood, which meant 2-3 days in the hospital. WHAT!!!!?!!?! No way!!! I did not want to stay so I prayed and told God that I did not want to stay there because I wasn't sick enough to be in the hospital and I wanted him to do something about it.
I finally took some Tylenol at 1:45 am and was able to try to fall asleep. I was cold but when the Tylenol kicked in, I got hot and threw off all the covers and felt fine ever since then. I've had a bit of a runny nose but that seems like nothing compared to what they were trying to say I might have. I kept telling them that my daughter had the same thing on Mon & Tues but they wanted to keep me. So Adam encouraged me to call my Oncologist in Green Bay and share the info of what was going on and see if he would do anything different. He made a call to his associate that was in Escanaba yesterday and asked if he'd come see me and see whether he felt comfortable advising that I be released. Then he called me and told me this information. I tried to watch tv earlier but there really wasn't anything good on so I shut it off and opened the blinds a little and sat in the chair near the window and prayed. I was just thinking that I wished I had my cell phone so I could continue reading the book I started called "When Heaven Invades Earth" but I had forgotten my phone in the van and I didn't have a charger with me anyway. Then I remembered that there should be a Bible in the room thanks to the Gideons and I went to find it. I found it and sat down and started reading, pausing when my lunch came & when the nurse came to take my vitals. I read for a few hours I think and stopped to pray at different times when I felt I needed to or when the scriptures spoke to me. Then the Oncology doctor came in to see me. He only cracked the door a little and didn't see me in the bed and said where are you because he had heard me reply for him to come in. I said over here. He was like oh, you're not in the bed. I said no, I refuse to lay there when I'm not sick. It made him chuckle. He asked how I was feeling and I said I feel really good. He said well you look great! He examined me and then asked if they were going to release me tomorrow. I said maybe but my other doctor said you might be willing to talk to them and ask for me to be released today. He said, oh sure, I can do that. You seem fine. I explained again how my daughter had the same thing earlier in the week and ran the same kind of temperature and that I hadn't run a fever for any of the chemo treatments I have had. He talked to the doctor and she came in to see me and signed the discharge papers. In the meantime, they had pumped me full of antibiotics and gave me diarrhea to which they tested to make sure I didn't have c-diff. She said that they would call me with the results and she sent me home on an antibiotic of HUGE pills and told me to treat the head cold. I haven't had a fever since it broke in the hospital and I am ever so thankful to be back at home. I don't expect to have a blood infection because if I did have sepsis, I would not look or feel the way I do. I didn't have my phone with me so I didn't have any phone numbers to call anyone and I couldn't get online to tell anyone either. I figured this was the easiest way to share what happened when people start hearing I was in the hospital and asking questions. Sorry I didn't contact anyone, especially close family members. Once I got home around 4:30, it was snuggle the kiddos because we missed each other so much. Then dinner, then chores & homework and a run to the pharmacy to get the meds they prescribed to me. Then get the kiddos to bed and help Gabby finish her homework and then off to bed myself. Whew! But I was sooooo thankful to be able to do those things. Today I did most of my usual things in the morning with getting the kids ready for school. My mother-in-law stayed the night in order to help out again today and took the kids to school and then we've been picking up and cleaning today. And when I received a text asking how I am doing...I thought it was time to sit down and type an update so questions are answered.
God continues to be so GOOD! I was going to share a few verses that spoke to me yesterday but I was unable to mark them because I had the hospital bible and didn't even have a pen in the room so as they come back to my memory, I'll be sure to share. But today was really quite normal. Thanks for the prayers and concerns. And it's Friday so I'm doing great! ~Jeannette :)
Warning: Medical talk below....
I had been very cold Tuesday night and didn't sleep much because I was shivering. My alarm clock went off and I got up, took the kids to school. Made myself a shake for breakfast but was really cold so I didn't finish it. Took a shower trying to warm up and then curled up in my bed to get warmer and fell asleep. I slept most of the day. Made Sadie some food and she stayed pretty close to me so I'd wake up and check on her but I was so sleepy. Then Adam got home and I took my temperature. It was up to 101.6. Not good, especially for a person that has been doing chemo treatments. So I called the doctor's office and waited for a call back. They told me they were concerned that my WBC was low and that I needed to have it checked so I should go to the walk in clinic. I did. They checked for strep because my nose was all stuffy and drainage in my throat and it looked nasty. Negative. They did a urine culture and that was negative and instead of sending me to the lab for the blood draws, they opted to send me to the ER. Oh joy!
They got me checked in with Triage and into a room fairly quickly. They had the lab people come to me and they had a hard time accessing my port at first because they didn't have a long enough needle, so we waited for about 15 or 20 minutes until someone could get the right size. They had to collect from 2 different sites so my port and then a poke on my arm because they needed to test my blood to see if I had an infection in my blood which translates pretty much to sepsis. But that test takes 2-3 days to get results back. They did a chest x-ray which was negative, and they did a flu test which was negative. I had been praying and the Tylenol that I had taken before going in started to work and I was feeling more myself. They started an IV to re-hydrate me and I continued to wait. The doctor ended up coming back in to tell me and my mother-in-law that I would need to be admitted overnight in order to figure out what was going on. It is protocol for people that have a fever and have had chemo treatments or something. I was not thrilled to hear this. So my mother-in-law couldn't do anything else with me there and went home to get a few things and went to my house in order to get the kids to bed and get them off to school on Thursday and take care of Sadie on Thursday.
It took until midnight for them to get a bed for me in the hospital and then nearly another hour to get me checked in with a million questions to answer, vitals to be done again and then for me to wait to be seen by the doctor there for an evaluation. I was mostly fine except they hadn't been able to get me any Tylenol to bring the fever back down and I was chilled again. It had been about 9 1/2 hours since I had any and because of the procedures they have in place, I had to wait for the doctor's orders to get into the computer. The doctor was very nice and told me that they planned to keep me until they got the blood test back whether I had an infection in my blood, which meant 2-3 days in the hospital. WHAT!!!!?!!?! No way!!! I did not want to stay so I prayed and told God that I did not want to stay there because I wasn't sick enough to be in the hospital and I wanted him to do something about it.
I finally took some Tylenol at 1:45 am and was able to try to fall asleep. I was cold but when the Tylenol kicked in, I got hot and threw off all the covers and felt fine ever since then. I've had a bit of a runny nose but that seems like nothing compared to what they were trying to say I might have. I kept telling them that my daughter had the same thing on Mon & Tues but they wanted to keep me. So Adam encouraged me to call my Oncologist in Green Bay and share the info of what was going on and see if he would do anything different. He made a call to his associate that was in Escanaba yesterday and asked if he'd come see me and see whether he felt comfortable advising that I be released. Then he called me and told me this information. I tried to watch tv earlier but there really wasn't anything good on so I shut it off and opened the blinds a little and sat in the chair near the window and prayed. I was just thinking that I wished I had my cell phone so I could continue reading the book I started called "When Heaven Invades Earth" but I had forgotten my phone in the van and I didn't have a charger with me anyway. Then I remembered that there should be a Bible in the room thanks to the Gideons and I went to find it. I found it and sat down and started reading, pausing when my lunch came & when the nurse came to take my vitals. I read for a few hours I think and stopped to pray at different times when I felt I needed to or when the scriptures spoke to me. Then the Oncology doctor came in to see me. He only cracked the door a little and didn't see me in the bed and said where are you because he had heard me reply for him to come in. I said over here. He was like oh, you're not in the bed. I said no, I refuse to lay there when I'm not sick. It made him chuckle. He asked how I was feeling and I said I feel really good. He said well you look great! He examined me and then asked if they were going to release me tomorrow. I said maybe but my other doctor said you might be willing to talk to them and ask for me to be released today. He said, oh sure, I can do that. You seem fine. I explained again how my daughter had the same thing earlier in the week and ran the same kind of temperature and that I hadn't run a fever for any of the chemo treatments I have had. He talked to the doctor and she came in to see me and signed the discharge papers. In the meantime, they had pumped me full of antibiotics and gave me diarrhea to which they tested to make sure I didn't have c-diff. She said that they would call me with the results and she sent me home on an antibiotic of HUGE pills and told me to treat the head cold. I haven't had a fever since it broke in the hospital and I am ever so thankful to be back at home. I don't expect to have a blood infection because if I did have sepsis, I would not look or feel the way I do. I didn't have my phone with me so I didn't have any phone numbers to call anyone and I couldn't get online to tell anyone either. I figured this was the easiest way to share what happened when people start hearing I was in the hospital and asking questions. Sorry I didn't contact anyone, especially close family members. Once I got home around 4:30, it was snuggle the kiddos because we missed each other so much. Then dinner, then chores & homework and a run to the pharmacy to get the meds they prescribed to me. Then get the kiddos to bed and help Gabby finish her homework and then off to bed myself. Whew! But I was sooooo thankful to be able to do those things. Today I did most of my usual things in the morning with getting the kids ready for school. My mother-in-law stayed the night in order to help out again today and took the kids to school and then we've been picking up and cleaning today. And when I received a text asking how I am doing...I thought it was time to sit down and type an update so questions are answered.
God continues to be so GOOD! I was going to share a few verses that spoke to me yesterday but I was unable to mark them because I had the hospital bible and didn't even have a pen in the room so as they come back to my memory, I'll be sure to share. But today was really quite normal. Thanks for the prayers and concerns. And it's Friday so I'm doing great! ~Jeannette :)
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