4: One day at a time

The hospital life

Halfway through the treatments, life has settled into an hourly lesson in learning to take one thing at a time, one day at a time. The purpose of my 5-day stay at Poudre Valley Hospital is to receive IV treatments of anti-thymocyte globulin and be monitored regularly for side effects (see previous post). I get a slow drip for 8 hours, then a 4-hour break. Unfortunately, the 8- hour session often goes longer than scheduled, and my freedom-from-the-IV-pole often gets shortened. It’s been pretty routine, thankfully, and I only had serious side effect the first night here when I had a fever spike to 100.6. Normally that wouldn’t be terribly alarming, but since I have so few white blood cells, and this treatment is specifically to kill off some of those remaining WBCs, any fever over 100.4 is treated very seriously. Once under control through the use of steroids, Tylenol and Benadryl, things returned to normal.

Life in the hospital can be far from boring, however. We’ve had three “Code Gray” alerts on our wing (Oncology) which is for "combative patient" and a call for “all hands on deck,” plus a “Code Red” (fire alarm) in the basement at 3 am this morning. Luckily, I was already wide awake with a new infusion starting. It seemed like the alarm went on forever!

More numbers games

Since the last post, my platelets dropped by half, so I was given one unit of platelets yesterday. Results from the transfusion were excellent, but they’ve dropped again today. The doc (Diana Medgyesy) assured me that my great initial response was very promising, however.

Last night after a new CBC, we found that my hemoglobin levels had dropped below the critical threshold so I’m receiving 2 units of blood today. It’s here that I’d like to encourage any friends and family who can, to go donate blood and make it part of your annual philanthropy. I know of two very dedicated donors in the business, Keith Williamson (Little Valley Wholesale Nursery) and Stan Brown (Alameda Wholesale Nursery) who have donated GALLONS of blood over their lifetimes – a big shout out to them. My parents used to donate regularly, so when I was a young adult, I tried to make it a regular thing, as well. I think I finally made it to the one-gallon level, but somehow let it drop. A couple of people have asked if they can donate and have it put into my personal blood “bank account,” but they don’t do that anymore. If you do want to donate, all the blood banks are desperate for more donors and would be thrilled to have you come in, if only just one time. The Garth Englund blood bank is where mine is coming from. 

So, the numbers game continues, and probably will, well…forever. It’s a good thing that Joel and I are so consumed with spreadsheets, organizational charts, and scientific research. To be honest, it’s our way of coping and not letting the dark matter take over our brains. It’s all very fascinating and we’re learning so much – just wish it wasn’t so personal.

Dr. McFarland did warn us it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, so we’re looking forward to that time.

Found this song by Phia titled, "It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better"

Team Cooper

Team Cooper has been busy at work, and she’s getting more attention and ball play than she’s had for months!

The Catherman grandkids with Cooper. 

Deep thoughts

I know this post was a bit more serious than the previous, but we’re in the weeds right now and I wanted you all to know we’re doing well, we have incredible support, and none of the scary things I read about for this portion of the treatment have come to pass. We’ve just passed the half way point here at PVH, and I’m absolutely sure that the worst is behind us for this portion of the journey.

In the poet Robert Frost’s poem, “A Servant to Servants,” this very famous and popular (though often mis-quoted) phrase is now a daily mantra.

More fun, and more to our personal taste, is this song from one of our absolute favorite Colorado singer-songwriters, Chuck Pyle. Chuck played at two of our house concerts (Joel's 40th and 50th birthdays) and it was our date at the Boulderado seeing Chuck in person in 1985 that sealed the deal for Joel and I.

Keep It Simple by Chuck Pyle

One day at a time....