Stickers

Be it good or bad, I journal less than I did when the blog was not such an effective vehicle of tracking our lives. With that said, the events of last night, need to be captured so here we go.  I'll do my best while it is still fresh. The last few days my temperature has been hovering in the 99.5 zone.  I can't recall exactly what the threshold is but numerous nurses have asked, "Have they told you what happens when you spike a fever?" The long and short of it is that they take it very seriously and want to be sure it is not the result of some sort of infection.

At 11:30pm the fever finally crossed the threshold of where it throws people into overdrive.  One NA (nurse assistant) brings in a cup for a urine sample, and I obliged.
Pete the Nurse on the S.O.S team steps in.  I think he said it stands for Serve our staff?  Basically, he is a floater who steps in where needed. He spends the next 40 minutes taking blood cultures from each of my PICC lines and just for good measure he took some blood peripherally too.  That of course required two pokes just because nothing is ever easy.

By 1:24am, Matt swings by to whisk me off in a wheel chair to get a chest x-ray.  We weave our way down the convoluted halls of UW.  Keep in mind, it is the middle of the night and I forgot to throw my glasses on for the journey so everything has a pretty fuzzy feel to it and this is where it gets weird.  One elevator ride and many twists and turns later we arrive in the x-ray room and I hear "Jeffrey, my name is  Melody, I 'm going to attach these stickers, one to each nipple." Weird, I have had a lot of chest x-rays but never have they involved nipple stickers.  It was one of those lines that really makes a guy wonder, what the heck kind of drugs do they have me on?

I smiled pretty for the camera and was soon back in bed trying to rest.  Really, all joking aside, it was a miserable night.  Today, we finally made some headway in finding the right combination/dosage of morphine for pain management.  My mouth/throat/esophagus are the biggest areas of concern.  Swallowing brings considerable amount of pain so harkening back to days gone by, I am enjoying my ice chip diet although even those bite size morsels of frozen goodness prove to be too much most times.  I have a suction tube (think dentist tool) within reach of my bed constantly and it has become my closest friend to suck out the saliva that I just cannot swallow.

I was given Platelets and two units of RBC's (red blood cells) today and we are making progress.  Today is Day +7 so as those WBC get back up and running I should begin to feel better.  None of what I have described is out of the ordinary, I am supposed to be feeling all of the above mentioned un-nice-ities.  Once again, I can't say thank you enough for flooding the UW with goodies for me and the family!  I love hearing from everyone.  May your night be restful and I'll see you all down the road.