Hospital Sweet Hospital

Sorry for my hiatus this week! I was spending four relaxing (not!) days at Brook Army Medical Center getting IV antibiotics for an infection at my arm port site. On Mother's Day my arm was sore and felt warm so I went to the Emergency Department to get it checked out. After six hours- can it ever be less?- it was determined that I had a small clot in the vein where my arm port was. I was given a prescription for six months of twice a day blood thinner shots and sent home. On Monday morning, shortly after returning from the ER, we took the kids to school and passed our housing inspection at our old house- thanks Roma and family and the Nielsons for your help cleaning on Saturday! HUGS!

I returned the the hospital and had my port removed- OUCH! I would rather have given birth than do that again! Unfortunately, later in the day I got a fever of 103F so back to the ER I went for another night of getting poked with needles and no sleep. Finally I was admitted to the hospital at 4am! Because of my chemo, my white blood cell count was already low and I needed help from strong IV antibiotics to fight the infection. Luckily it was not a serious infection like MRSA, just a generic skin staph infection. The doctors and nurses at the hospital were very nice and took great care of me. I was not feeling that bad, just mostly bored sitting around in bed watching tv and getting another dose of medicine every six hours. Once I stopped running a fever, the swelling went down in my arm and my white blood cell count was back to normal, I got a new PICC line (like a permanant IV) in my other arm today and I got to come home.

I am still on antibiotics for two more weeks but I can have them at home. I just hook a bottle of the medicine to my PICC line once a day and place it in a super cool fanny pack. The antibiotics last for twenty-four hours until they get changed out again. It's pretty high tech and I am very happy to be home and not in the hospital for two weeks! Want to learn more about PICC lines? Here's a great link: http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Treatments/Chemotherapy/Linesports/PICCline

I will be getting my chemo next Wed instead of yesterday and Iam looking ofrward to sleeping in my own bed! Yay!