For the 3 or 4 days leading up to Veterans Day and especially the last 2 days I had trouble breathing along with severe pain in my right chest and back. Unable to sleep for those 2 days, exhausted and depressed, I made up my mind to get in the shower on Saturday morning, shave and brush my teeth so Vicki could take me to the Emergency room at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.
I chose to go up there rather than the closer Chandler Regional Hospital because they had already drained the fluid from around my lungs once back on October 19th. They had all my records, my latest scan and I believed they would just do a better job at helping me. I was right.
Vicki pulled up to the emergency entrance and put me in a wheelchair. When I told the nurse who came out to get me that I was having trouble breathing she immediately took me into a triage room, pulled up my records and got me into a treatment room. There they hooked me up to a heart monitor, an oxygen monitor, performed an EKG and got me ready for the ER Doctor. He came in shortly thereafter and asked me what was going on. I explained about the fluid build up and the pain.
He ordered a shot of painkiller and a couple of x-rays. The x-rays showed more fluid than I had back in October. I was taken into the ultrasound room where a technician prepped me for another Thoracintesis.
The radiologist came in and started draining the fluid. Once again it went smooth, I felt no pain and all was good till the very last. This time they removed 2.2 liters of fluid, a large amount. During the final moments I came down with a hacking cough and severe wheezing. It was very scary. I felt as if I couldn't get my breath and panicked a little bit. Luckily the cough and wheezing went away, then returned again, the went away again. It freaked me out.
Due to my coughing and wheezing they were unable to drain any more fluid. The ER Doctor had x-rays taken after the procedure and they showed I still had a substantial amount of fluid left. We discussed my options which were having a catheter implanted to drain the fluid or have the lining of lung scarred surgically to cause the inner and outer linings to adhere to one another thereby leaving no room for the fluid. There doesn't seem to be any way to just stop the fluid build up. Kind of a bummer.
My next appointment is this coming Tuesday. I will talk with the Clinical Trial Coordinator and the Hemo nurse about my options. I feel like I need to stop or exit the trial and get this problem fixed first. The combination of the exhaustion caused by the Cancer drug and the inability to catch my breath (just getting up to go to the bathroom required a few minutes to get my breath back) mixed with severe pain and the inability to sleep makes the prospect of repeating the process intolerable. I truly feared for my life at a couple of points during the previous week.
I am unsure what will come next.
Here's this week's contribution to my "New Normal"
Uncommon Tones
Not everyone has the sweet mellifluous tone of Jewel
or the raspy, catchy blues brilliance of Stevie Ray
Some try their best but the result is cruel
and they find themselves unable to say
Just what it is that works them inside
Heightens their fears and makes them abide
Alone and afraid just wanting to know
That there’s someone to whom they can go
For shelter and comfort
Laughter and Play
Hugging and Kisses
Someone who’ll stay
With them the whole night
Not slipping from their bed
Waking up in the moonlight
No note that they’ve fled
And leaving them lonely, stony and cold
There in the bedroom with no one to hold
Wondering, pondering were they the fool
Thinking they could sing their love like Jewel
Hang in there,
RT
2 comments:
Wow man, been wrapped up in my Fathers passing away and haven't been checking on you, shame on me. I take it you are home, hopefully not in pain. I live with pain and it's not a fun thing. Not life threatening or from something as serious as what you are going through.
My father entered the hospital 9-5-2017 and died in hospice on 10-20-2017 it was a very painful and fast ending, although I will tell you we were all praying to end his struggle. He asked me to do something to help him die, anything. I told him I loved him more in those last 3 days than I did in my whole life.
When he passed Justin my my middle son and I were there along with the hospice nurse, I will tell you such a calm came over the room it was really eerie.
The funeral was at the VA Cemetery on Friday November 3rd and that evening my youngest son James hosted a BBQ for the Grand-kids, there were 50 people there. Then Sunday November 5th his 89th Birthday we had a Pleger family re-union and there was 150-175 family and friends that attended. I will tell you he would have enjoyed both celebrations, it was a wonderful time.
Nancy has been going on adrenaline since early September, what a blessing she has been, we are both about to collapse. My sister and her husband were here most of the time and they are both in their 70's and worked their butts off preparing the house for sale dividing dads possessions what a great help they were, they went back to South Carolina on the 8th. My little brother Don (the golf course guy, who is now your Sun Lakes common area Superintendent) has never had a pot to piss in is now getting ready to share in a pretty good size estate and he is really stunned at some of the numbers he has been seeing.
Today I got an offer on his house but the Real Estate sales lady says she heard of another offer that should be full asking price so I am going to see what competing offers bring us tomorrow. Funny thing was, Nancy and Dad always talked stocks often and Dad always complimented Nancy's knowledge, well when it was all said and done she thought he had been dabbling on her recommendations but he wasn't he was going all in, she thought he bought a 100 shares of Facebook and he bought a 1,000 shares, needles to say on that one alone he was up $300K, now I'm wrestling with the brokerage house to get us out of the market so we can realize the profits, because you haven't mad a penny until you sell it.
Nancy is soooooo sharp on helping me, I am the administrator but feel like I'm her assistant. Hopefully we can close everything out within a year. So much work, nice that Dad left a lot and had the provisions in the trust to go forward,
Now back to you, I'm buried this week and have put you into the computer for next week, so I'll give you a call and come down and see you and see what my brother has done to make Sun Lakes pretty.
Later McMims
Jack, I know how close you were to your Dad and how big a loss this has been for you. Try to focus on how fortunate you were to have him in your life for this long. He was himself to end and you were there with him.
I don't have the words to convey my feelings for what you went through.
Post a Comment