June 28
Well…where to start…
Thursday was a busy day. After all of our therapy and doc visits, the nurse came out to begin hydration for Allyson because it’s an IV backpack weekend. Everything was fine…we went into the office on Friday…everything was fine…yesterday (Friday) evening, the pump alarmed and flashed “high pressure”. Allyson flipped out because she HATES the alarms on these pumps. I was home by myself because Brad was still at work. Sparing you some details, I finally reached a nurse who was able to tell me what to do. The “fix” worked, for a while. As soon as Brad got home, the alarm started going off, constantly! The nurse had to come to the house to help. She checked Ally’s needles (she’s double accessed)… one fell out and began to drain a little (not a good sign!). Anyway…We got Ally taken care of, pump working…until 5a.m. this morning. I had to call the nurse again to help us. This time, Brad and I (Brad actually did it as I was getting directions from the nurse)had to disconnect the line delivering the chemo and move it over to the other line. That seemed to help…the alarm stopped going off…
We had to get everyone up early because Dr. Bob said he wanted to see Allyson first thing in the morning. He wanted us in the office by 8:30 in the morning. As soon as we got there, the nurse de-accessed her. The site began to drain more than it did last night. This is a sign of infection. Dr. Bob came out and told us Ally would have to be admitted to the hospital (St. John’s is on the same campus as the Cancer Center) for at least a few days. (At least we’re in a really nice room, 3106. It is in the newly remodeled section that just opened a few weeks ago. The room is nice and big!) They have to surgically remove the port. When they get in there to remove it, they’ll see how bad and how far along the infection is. That will determine how long we are in here. For now, we know we’ll be here until at least Monday.
Right now Allyson is sleeping. She is OUT! They had to take both needles out of her port and start an IV in her arm. That was a quite a feat! It is soooo hard to find a vein on Allyson. It took three nurses to get the IV in. Poor baby…she cried and cried the whole time. (Brad was with her…I just can’t take that at all…it makes me a wreck!) She popped lots and lots of blood vessels on her head a face. She looks like she’s got little red freckles all over.
They’ve started IV antiobiotic treatment already. One of them can cause you to turn red (Redman Syndrome). Of course, Allyson turned red and began to get really itchy. She was given a dose of Benadryl (however you spell it). I believe the combination of a stressful afternoon and the Benadryl has knocked her out! I’m hoping she’ll sleep for the rest of the night.
Ally is scheduled for surgery tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. We’ll know more after her surgery.
Benjamin is at Aunt Jecka’s having a ball! He’s been playing all day with Ollie and Uncle Shawn and loving it! (Thank God!)