try to administer some kind of care or comfort where there really is no such thing. The only things that bring any level of solace come in a bag that’s mainlined into the picc line in her right arm.
On Wednesday night, they needed to open up a vein on her left arm so they could give her blood products so her numbers stay stable.
Most times there are 4-to-8 bags of any number of liquids hanging from a pole – they call it a “tree” – and dripping into her bloodstream.
Her only exit strategy? She literally has a little button for the morphine drip and can hit it every 10 minutes. (Yes, there’s a limiter so she doesn’t overdose.) Sometimes, it even works to soothe the pain a little. As Billy Joel sang: “Just a little push and you’ll be smiling…”
As she told the doctor this morning: “Oh, I’m not shy about pushing that button!”
People have asked me what it’s like to have cancer and I really don’t know.
I had never thought about it until I saw what it did to Jenn last April. And now again.
It’s kinda like the worst flu you’ve ever experienced – except that you know it’s coming and you don’t know if, or when, it’s going to end. She hasn’t even dealt with the low-grade fevers or rashes she experienced last time. Of course, she had none of this nausea, vomiting or a week-long black hole of drugs, extreme illness and mouth sores on her original chemo recovery.
Her immune system is now gone – the word for it is neutropenia.
She’s full of drugs that I can’t pronounce and ones that would only frighten you if you Googled them anyway. It’s mostly anti-nausea and painkiller stuff, which clearly is either working and we wouldn’t want to see what it looked like without it – or, perhaps, useless?
This cancer shit is flat out warfare. For the mind. For the body. For the spirit. For the soul.
We’re waiting for the lesions and mouth sores to heal so she can start eating regular food. There is no timetable on this but the doctors believe her youth and strength will get her through this week and she’ll be better through the weekend. But, because she has no white blood cells, the lesions in her throat have no way to improve so her body is making gobs of mucus – they call it “mucositis” – to heal the inner sores throughout everywhere food travels.
Despite the current state of misery, her doctors are very encouraged by her progress.
She is on a perfect track.
Amidst all of this sickness and the absolute blur of the last two weeks, we got the best news possible at this point. We have learned that the now 22-year old angel from Germany who saved her life back in June 2014 is headed to the hospital again next Thursday, October 29th – and at some point late in the evening he will attempt to save her life for the second time. You should read his first letter to her from last spring.
We are eternally grateful.
She must remain in the hospital until her neutrophils return, which they expect will be sometime toward the middle of November. The median day for the graft vs. host disease that was defined in my previous blog would be sometime in the middle of December. She needs to experience this in order to be leukemia free.
Needless to say, we’ll be having an interesting …
