Monthly Archives: December 2014

2015 is going to be a good year

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So, I wrote a really long blog post the weekend after I got home from the hospital. Things got busy and hectic and I never posted it so I just posted it and back dated it. Sorry for cheating.

On Friday night – two days after I got home — Alan and I went to do my meds around 9:30 p.m. To add to all of the craziness and bad luck that has gone on lately, my line was clogged. Apparently your blood can tend to clot around the foreign object that you have in your body. We knew one side was clogged, but when the other side was clogged on Friday, the only option was to make a trip to the ER.

I cried.

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Home and on the mend

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We pulled in to our garage around 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning after a looooong week at MD Anderson. We were beat.

(So was poor Krisan who was so kind and stayed with our kids until we got home even though she had to work the next day – I got lucky when she and I met almost 20 years ago.)

Before leaving, Alan took his PICC line test that allows him to give me my meds and clean and change my dressing. It is really important that we are very careful to keep it sterile so the process of changing my dressing is VERY tough. They require him to demonstrate his abilities while a nurse observes.

Here are some pics of him as he tested:

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Day 3: Waiting for skin to return to normal

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We’re just waiting for Jenny’s skin color on her left side to return to normal.

Today was pretty simple. The only drama was with the ultrasound of the infected area.

Jenny’s white blood cell count is back within normal range. And she felt pretty good for the bulk of the day.

But the redness on her skin has grown, which is a ‘clinical sign’ of infection. (The quotes around ‘clinical sign’ come from Katie, Dr. Kronowitz’s PA.)

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Day 2: Waiting, getting a PICC line … and more waiting

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Today is a little better than the day before. That’s pretty much the goal with these stays in the hospital. We found that out when we were here in 2012.

Jenny has had more energy today. She even got up and showered. And she got out her computer and did some Christmas shopping.

But she’s also felt worn out and nauseous at other times. They are pumping her with lots of medicine. She’s not taking Hydrocodone, though. She hates that stuff, so they’re giving her Ibuprofin to manage the pain that she still has.

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Surgery No. 7 — Lucky No. 7

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Jenny is back for another surgery. She detailed the plan in a post on Tuesday, where she talks about the continued reconstruction phase of this process.

We know we are near the end — Jenny wants a finish line — but she also knows the cancer that she found in 2012 will always be a part of her life. But she has said out loud that this is the final surgery for awhile:

“I have declared this my last surgery for two years.”

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