Posted by Becky
Leif's been admitted to a room at DHMC and is scheduled to start his chemotherapy at 9pm. It's 10pm now, and the pharmacy hasn't sent it up yet, so we're clearly on hospital time. So far, his nurses and aides are all ones he's had before, which is nice. They like how he looks with facial hair. (Me too.)
His phone # is 603-650-2108. You can call between about 8am to 7pm; if he's asleep or occupied, he won't answer.
His first appointment was to get cleared by the surgeon for chemo. Ordinarily they'd want to wait longer, but we're trying to balance healing with Leif's need to get back on chemotherapy, and Leif appears to be healing up well. Then we met with Dr. Meehan. Leif's spleen has enlarged from where it was earlier in his recovery from this chemo round, and that plus the suppressed blood count implies that the lymphoma is still pretty active. He briefly considered putting Leif on a different chemo regimen, but after doing some calculations, decided to stick with the same one as last time after all. The plan is still to go straight to transplant from this chemo round; whether a full or mini transplant will depend on how Leif tolerates this chemo. Dr. Meehan is concerned about the toxicities involved with a full transplant. However, that's a decision for another day.
His heart test and pulmonary test fell within acceptable parameters for transplant. There is some work the dentist would like to do (one deep cavity, wisdom teeth removal) but that is a lower priority/risk than the lymphoma or the former abscess site.
Then it was out to the infusion center to get a blood draw. Once the labs came back, they tanked him up with some platelets so they could put a PICC line in. The transplant coordinator walked us to the department to get the PICC line; since Leif hadn't officially been admitted yet and therefore was operating as an outpatient, there was no friendly aide to wheel him off to the correct location. I'm glad she helped, because we had to go to three different places before we found the right one. Also because of the outpatient issue, the PICC line staff hadn't received the orders to give Leif a sedative first due to his needle phobia. Having one of these put in is particularly stressful for him, since it's a long needle that goes in quite a ways, and part of his phobia is anxiety that a needle will break off underneath his skin (he knows that's not rational ... thus the term phobia). Anyway, that was a stressful experience, and he got lots of apologies and a slug of Ativan afterwards. By this time it was about 5pm; we went back to the infusion suite to wait until his room was ready, and then got moved in.
His room is peach colored, not pink, which is a relief. It seems to be in a relatively peaceful location, with quiet neighbors, near where he was before. Fortunately I think Leif is designated to always get private rooms, due to the expectation that he will soon be neutropenic (low white blood cell counts). The clock ticks loudly, though; I need to bring in our silent clock from home since ticking clocks make it difficult for Leif to sleep or concentrate.
I'll be staying here with Leif tonight; they brought in a cot for me, and we got all the furniture rearranged to suit our preferences. There was a nice snowstorm last night, and the drive into the hospital was quite pretty.
Leif's been admitted to a room at DHMC and is scheduled to start his chemotherapy at 9pm. It's 10pm now, and the pharmacy hasn't sent it up yet, so we're clearly on hospital time. So far, his nurses and aides are all ones he's had before, which is nice. They like how he looks with facial hair. (Me too.)
His phone # is 603-650-2108. You can call between about 8am to 7pm; if he's asleep or occupied, he won't answer.
His first appointment was to get cleared by the surgeon for chemo. Ordinarily they'd want to wait longer, but we're trying to balance healing with Leif's need to get back on chemotherapy, and Leif appears to be healing up well. Then we met with Dr. Meehan. Leif's spleen has enlarged from where it was earlier in his recovery from this chemo round, and that plus the suppressed blood count implies that the lymphoma is still pretty active. He briefly considered putting Leif on a different chemo regimen, but after doing some calculations, decided to stick with the same one as last time after all. The plan is still to go straight to transplant from this chemo round; whether a full or mini transplant will depend on how Leif tolerates this chemo. Dr. Meehan is concerned about the toxicities involved with a full transplant. However, that's a decision for another day.
His heart test and pulmonary test fell within acceptable parameters for transplant. There is some work the dentist would like to do (one deep cavity, wisdom teeth removal) but that is a lower priority/risk than the lymphoma or the former abscess site.
Then it was out to the infusion center to get a blood draw. Once the labs came back, they tanked him up with some platelets so they could put a PICC line in. The transplant coordinator walked us to the department to get the PICC line; since Leif hadn't officially been admitted yet and therefore was operating as an outpatient, there was no friendly aide to wheel him off to the correct location. I'm glad she helped, because we had to go to three different places before we found the right one. Also because of the outpatient issue, the PICC line staff hadn't received the orders to give Leif a sedative first due to his needle phobia. Having one of these put in is particularly stressful for him, since it's a long needle that goes in quite a ways, and part of his phobia is anxiety that a needle will break off underneath his skin (he knows that's not rational ... thus the term phobia). Anyway, that was a stressful experience, and he got lots of apologies and a slug of Ativan afterwards. By this time it was about 5pm; we went back to the infusion suite to wait until his room was ready, and then got moved in.
His room is peach colored, not pink, which is a relief. It seems to be in a relatively peaceful location, with quiet neighbors, near where he was before. Fortunately I think Leif is designated to always get private rooms, due to the expectation that he will soon be neutropenic (low white blood cell counts). The clock ticks loudly, though; I need to bring in our silent clock from home since ticking clocks make it difficult for Leif to sleep or concentrate.
I'll be staying here with Leif tonight; they brought in a cot for me, and we got all the furniture rearranged to suit our preferences. There was a nice snowstorm last night, and the drive into the hospital was quite pretty.
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