Yet More Hospital
The latest attempt at mobilization (the process of getting Lut's body to make enough stem cells in the blood stream that they can collect enough for a transplant) started 13 days ago. It had been going reasonably well, though not great. We are at the point where "if things went great, we would've been able to collect stem cells from you today". Things had not gone great, and his white blood cell count was still at the "too low to be detected" point. Since the chemo (cytoxin), he'd been given fluids once and platelets twice, but hadn't needed hemoglobin yet. He was feeling about as well as he had before the chemo.
Yesterday evening, at 6:30, I went in to talk to him about dinner and he felt hot to me when I touched his forehead. So I took his temperature: 100.4, which is 1/10th of a degree below the "call 911, you are going to the hospital" threshold. I made him dinner and we sat down to watch Blade Runner 2049. An hour later, I took his temperature again: 100.9.
So I called 911 and we waited for the paramedics. They arrived and said "oh hey uh we've both been sick lately so maybe you should just take him to the ER yourself."
I took him to the ER, then called the BMT 24-hour line. I am still confused as to what the exact order of operations is supposed to be with various symptoms. It seems like "just take him to the ER" is the quickest, to be honest. Anyway, the ER saw him pretty quickly and started him on a course of general antibiotics at once, because with immune-suppressed patients they do not fool around. I hung around the ER until 10:30, then went home to get some sleep.
Not very much sleep: about 5.5 hours. Then back to the hospital this morning to see how he's doing. His fever at the hospital had gone down, and some of the readings have been normal, although it had spiked just before I left him this morning. He doesn't have any other symptoms (this is as expected, because when you have no white blood cells they can't cause any of the fighting-off-infections symptoms). They haven't found any signs of infection yet. So possibly it is just an allergen-caused fever, or "fever because that sometimes happens when you have no white blood cells."
There is at least a chance he'll be able to proceed with mobilization despite the hospitalization. I am not sure what happens next if we abort mobilization again. Lut thinks there are more options for collection. I kind of thought there was a point where they go "this isn't going to work, just go back to normal chemo and how for the best." But I don't know if we're there yet.
Anyway, since Lut's in the hospital, I do not need to be at home taking care of him. So I went to work today.
The enforced staycation for the last twelve days was not too bad up until the hospital stay. Daily doctor appointments, sometimes for several hours, but mostly pretty quick. Lut hasn't been able to do much for himself and he can't have restaurant food, so I was doing a lot of cooking and cleaning. But I had a lot of free time too. I finished editing Demon's Lure on Saturday night, so that put me ahead of my writing schedule for the month. I should have gone straight to editing Demon's Sigil, or possibly to working on The Princess, Her Dragon their Prince. Instead I went haring off after the outline for Frost, which is full of problematic material and was originally started in 2015. I'd forgotten all about it until something reminded me of it on Thursday. I doubt I will make this thing my next WIP. But I will let myself noodle at it until the end of the month, because cancer is the worst and my brain deserves some candy.
Next month has to be more editing or work on planned next book, though. Assuming cancer doesn't take another turn into AHHH NUUU land.
Prayers for Lut's recovery appreciated thank you.
This entry was originally posted at https://rowyn.dreamwidth.org/624888.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Yesterday evening, at 6:30, I went in to talk to him about dinner and he felt hot to me when I touched his forehead. So I took his temperature: 100.4, which is 1/10th of a degree below the "call 911, you are going to the hospital" threshold. I made him dinner and we sat down to watch Blade Runner 2049. An hour later, I took his temperature again: 100.9.
So I called 911 and we waited for the paramedics. They arrived and said "oh hey uh we've both been sick lately so maybe you should just take him to the ER yourself."
I took him to the ER, then called the BMT 24-hour line. I am still confused as to what the exact order of operations is supposed to be with various symptoms. It seems like "just take him to the ER" is the quickest, to be honest. Anyway, the ER saw him pretty quickly and started him on a course of general antibiotics at once, because with immune-suppressed patients they do not fool around. I hung around the ER until 10:30, then went home to get some sleep.
Not very much sleep: about 5.5 hours. Then back to the hospital this morning to see how he's doing. His fever at the hospital had gone down, and some of the readings have been normal, although it had spiked just before I left him this morning. He doesn't have any other symptoms (this is as expected, because when you have no white blood cells they can't cause any of the fighting-off-infections symptoms). They haven't found any signs of infection yet. So possibly it is just an allergen-caused fever, or "fever because that sometimes happens when you have no white blood cells."
There is at least a chance he'll be able to proceed with mobilization despite the hospitalization. I am not sure what happens next if we abort mobilization again. Lut thinks there are more options for collection. I kind of thought there was a point where they go "this isn't going to work, just go back to normal chemo and how for the best." But I don't know if we're there yet.
Anyway, since Lut's in the hospital, I do not need to be at home taking care of him. So I went to work today.
The enforced staycation for the last twelve days was not too bad up until the hospital stay. Daily doctor appointments, sometimes for several hours, but mostly pretty quick. Lut hasn't been able to do much for himself and he can't have restaurant food, so I was doing a lot of cooking and cleaning. But I had a lot of free time too. I finished editing Demon's Lure on Saturday night, so that put me ahead of my writing schedule for the month. I should have gone straight to editing Demon's Sigil, or possibly to working on The Princess, Her Dragon their Prince. Instead I went haring off after the outline for Frost, which is full of problematic material and was originally started in 2015. I'd forgotten all about it until something reminded me of it on Thursday. I doubt I will make this thing my next WIP. But I will let myself noodle at it until the end of the month, because cancer is the worst and my brain deserves some candy.
Next month has to be more editing or work on planned next book, though. Assuming cancer doesn't take another turn into AHHH NUUU land.
Prayers for Lut's recovery appreciated thank you.
This entry was originally posted at https://rowyn.dreamwidth.org/624888.html. Please comment there using OpenID.