Hopefully By the Time You Read This...

I'll be home. It's Friday morning and I'm still here at the hospital. They did the procedure Wednesday right here in my ICU room. Kind of turned it into a mini-OR with a  team of people, including the woman who did my original heart scan Monday afternoon when I was struggling. Because I didn't have a massive amount of fluid, they had a bit of tough time getting at it, as one of my ribs was right in the way. That meant a lot more pain meds, etc. for me during the procedure. The drugs made me sick and I mostly slept for the next 10 hours. 

They left a drain in attached to an old-timey glass IV bottle -- how funny is that? Well, the glass bottle part. The good news was, in the next 24 hours no new fluid appeared. So, yesterday morning they removed the tube (fun times) and we continue to wait for the labs to come back. My chest and beyond still hurts quite a bit, it hurts to take a deep breath, etc., but that's starting to get a little better. The cardiologist was here just now and said it would actually be abnormal for this to be a side effect of chemo (which is what I thought) but it's possible. It may have just happened. (Not the definitive answer I was hoping for). But when the labs are back, they should know for sure. He said as long as my follow-up heart scan is clear today they'll let me go home even if my labs are back yet. As long as my oncology team is cool with that of course. 

My bigger ailment at the moment is my stomach. My system is just wrecked after the cdiff, chemo, three weeks of antibiotics, etc., so I'm having a tough time there. Nothing is making it better. They said the cdiff especially just really wrecks your system and it will take a long time to build it back up again. So, I'm sticking to the ol' BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) even though I'm not hungry at all, and hoping for the best. 

That's about it. I had a nice surprise visitor this morning! When one of your BFFs from college lives 900 miles away, she sends her dad to bring you flowers and a trashy magazine. I haven't seen him in over a year and we had a nice visit. 

Hopefully my next update will be from home, hopefully feeling a little better. OK, I have a magazine to go read!