Chemo Day 4

 Today we had a later start as well.  The good news was that despite Dad having increased his chemo pills to four last night, he had NO side effects.  I was thrilled and surprised at the same time.  The bummer, though, was that Dad barely slept.  I'm not sure if it was the chemo, the fact that he hasn't had any type of sleeping pill in about a week, or that his IV line is now in the bend of his arm, making it difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position.  We got up a little later, 7'ish.  I went and got us both two cups of coffee and came back and got our breakfasts ready.  He then went back to bed for a while.

We headed for the hospital about 10:45 or so.  This time, instead of having to check in downstairs as usual, we just went straight up to the third floor to the infusion section.  There were not very many patients there, which was nice.  We got called back a LOT sooner and were in a private room this time, which was nice!  There was even a recliner for me instead of just a chair or bench.  At first the TV didn't work for Dad, but later I tried it again and it was working so I put a baseball game on for him.

They did labs at the infusion area this time, started his fluids, gave his chemo shots, and then the labs came back.  As I was looking them over I saw that his hemoglobin was down to 7.8, which is below their threshold for needing blood.  I went to ask about it, and they were just coming to tell us that they were talking to someone else on his team about it.  It was decided that Dad would receive blood today.  The unfortunate part is that he was almost done receiving his fluids, so we thought we were about out of there.  The positive, is that the blood transfuses at a rate of 450 ml/hr instead of 250.

They also noticed that Dad had left a wrap on his arm from where they'd pulled the other IV that the other dude messed up.  His arm had swelled some around it, so they removed that.  Also, they were checking his temperature, and it started out 99.1, then 99.3, then 99.7, and then dropped back to 98.8.  The last check was back at 99.2.  I checked it after we got back to the room when Dad got up for supper and it was in the normal range.

I fixed us both something for supper from the kitchen pantry here at the House.  Dad ate, took his meds and started to go to bed.  I asked him if he wanted some of my melatonin and he did, so hopefully it will help him sleep better tonight.  Hopefully the person upstairs who sounds like they're wearing cinder blocks on their feet will be quieter tonight.

Pretty mild day.  With the shortened waiting time today, it made it a whole lot nicer.  Since we ended up having to be there longer than we thought initially, I was able to watch a movie on YouTube.  It's nice to have that option to help pass the time.  Plus I was able to keep my phone plugged in and charged the whole time.

Not a big update.  We have to be there tomorrow at 11:30 and it will be the same, straight up to the infusion section, more labs, but this time they did say he would receive another unit of blood no matter what.  Dad will have to take a shower and use the wrap thingy that the nurse, Tinika, gave us yesterday to keep his IV site dry.  I hope that goes well.  Until tomorrow...