Birthday at the hospital!

Written Jul 19, 2011 11:51am

Well .. . . . staying at home didn’t work out as long as I had hoped it would.  I was really never better.  I wanted to be home, but I still couldn’t eat because my mouth sores were just as bad as ever, and I was slowly losing weight, and losing energy each day.  I tried to get up out of bed in the morning, and it would take me several tries because I was so light-headed.   I had to sleep frequently throughout the day, and I just wasn’t getting better as I had hoped.
I assumed (and the doctors told me) that my mouth sores would get better each day, but they weren’t, so it was impossible each day to get the nutrition I needed in my body to feel good and to just function.  I loved being with my kids, but I couldn’t really take care of them at all.
Finally, that Friday, I had a doctor’s appointment to see how I was doing.  After taking my blood work, I waited for my doctor.  When she came in she was reviewing the results of my bloodwork.  I assumed that the white blood cells were going up as they had been when I left the hospital.  Instead they had plummeted!  I knew that I didn’t feel great, but I didn’t know the bloodwork would confirm it.
The Dr. said, “We are going to need to incarcerate you.”  I said, “Like right now?!”  She said, “Yes.”
My niece was with me, so she was able to drive the van home and be with the kids while I stayed here and get into a new room.  I kept thinking about how it was my birthday the next day for some reason.  I had imagined that I was going to feel good by this weekend, and that I would have a fun birthday weekend with my family and still have about a week before I had to start chemo again. Now, I am still trying to get recovered from this darn chemo that seems to have blown my brains out or something!!  I can’t believe how hard it is for me to recover from it.
I am now on a nutritional supplement that is being fed right into my body.  It has all the nutrition and calories I need in a day.  That makes me feel good because I have felt so much pressure for about 5 weeks to eat and drink enough, and I haven’t been able to do it with these mouth sores, so I have just been losing weight and getting weaker.  Now I can just sit back and let that bag feed me for a while!!  (Although I would love for my mouth to just heal up so I could eat!!!)
Yesterday I had to have a bone marrow biopsy to make sure that there is not a problem in my bone marrow such as leukemia or something.  It was not a fun procedure, but I got lots of pain meds for it.  I am hoping that everything is fine with my bone marrow, but that it is just tired and that’s why it’s taking a while to grow.
In the meantime I am just sitting in this hospital room bored and wishing I could go home.  I have had a few visitors.  Last night Branden brought a video and came up by himself and we had a little movie night in here.  That was really fun!!
I have the best family and can’t wait to get home to them!!