Day 21: Too Much Sleep Makes You Crazy

Where to start.....today has been crazy. When you wake up and the first thing you say to your mom is "I'm sleeping all day today" you know it's going to be a bad/off day. So first off, I got a terrible nurse. She was weird (like hardly any social skills at all) and she was messy and clumsy with everything she did. For instance, when she was drawing my blood for yet another blood culture (i was pretty much asleep looking the other way) and when I had to get up to go to the restroom there were blood spots on my sheets where my arms were and there were torn open packages of alcohol pads on my blanket and on the floor. Like she used them and put them down and didn't even clean up. It was like this all day and at one point I moved my arm as she was flushing my PICC line I put my arm in alcohol pads that were just laying around and there was a full saline thingy on the other side of my bed just laying around like it rolled off of me and she couldn't find it. Then EVERY SINGLE time I went to use the restroom she was like 2 feet from me watching me in case I "fall" and even as I went to the restroom she stood right beside me and it was soooooo awkward.

oh and since you all were worried ALL DAY.....i did NOT have to use a bed pan to use the restroom.

hahahahahahaha!! :)

Also my nurse kept dropping the scanner they use to scan my bracelet thingy into the computer and all the medications I take, that she BROKE it. LOL. she was a mess. and it felt like she was in my room ALLLLLLLL DDDDDAAAAAAYYYYYYYY LLLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGGG. imagine how I would've felt if I was actually awake the whole day. GEEZ.

So this morning the doc came in and basically said the same thing about my counts. My white blood count stayed at a 0.4.... :( noooooo!!!! but hemoglobin went up to an 8.4 on its own! and my platelets were at a 50. He also said that I was running a little fever last night so more antibiotics and he just wanted to monitor that more. so basically I'm paying for an apartment for my cat to live there by himself....talk about the most spoiled cat in the world!! But it's okay he deserves he. I miss him a lot though. :( I will probably be here for a while. it's a feeling i'm getting. great.

So with the fever came another blood culture to see what kind of bacteria I have or if it's still the same one from the very first time. Then just as I was ready to go back to sleep around 9am-ish transportation people came to take me away to x-ray so I could get a chest x-ray to check for inflammation and whatever they look for.

Once I came back I was ready to go back to sleep then they wanted a urine sample so they were pushing for that but all I wanted to do was sleep so i ignored them and put my blanket over my head then they gave me my platelets to prep me for my spinal tap probably just to bother me to get me back....THEN just as I was on the verge of sleeping I hear a knock on the door (by now it's around 2 pm) and of course it's transportation AGAIN they were ready to take me down for my spinal tap.

I got to Radiology and it was sooo cold in the room I asked for as many blankets as they could give me. I was shivering and everything. They gave me quite a bit of pre-heated blankets....i should've just asked if I could sit in the oven thingy for a bit that warms the blankets. LOL. but i didn't. The procedure was done by a P.A (physician's assistant). I laid on my stomach with my lower back exposed and they were talking to me about what was going to happen and they said....okay Kim, you'll feel a pinch and then a burn. I said okay. He said "okay here is the pinch.....(yup felt like they were drawing blood w/ a needle)....okay now the burn....(OMG, the WORST PAIN BY FAR. It hurt so bad that I grabbed my pillow i had my head on and screamed into it as hard as possible). .....so you must not have a high pail tolerance level?"

I replied with a "well I think I do or at least I try to hide my actual emotion, i've never reacted like that..." So anyways i guess for a spinal tap they numb different levels in my back so each time they stuck the needle a little deeper and did the same thing. I didn't have a reaction the other times it was just the initial "burn" that kicked me in the rear end. it was crazy. They injected the chemo into me and advised me to not raise my head above a 30 degree angle for a few hours to avoid a headache and to lay on my back....so naturally when I got back i immediately crawled into bed and went to sleep. lol. I got back around 3 or 330 and fell asleep for a good 4 hours and woke up around 7 only because nutrition called me bugging me to order food reminding me I hadn't eaten all day. awesome. so i got a bowl of soup and oranges to tickle them a bit.

A teacher came by to visit and check up on me and she brought me a gift a student made and letters they wrote to keep me busy writing back to them. I am soooo impressed with the gift I got from my student. She made me a fake bouquet of flowers out of origami type paper and folding techniques. It's SOOOOOO creative and beautiful. I'm going to keep it FOREVER, it's that beautiful!

this is the front view....so talented!

this is just another angle to show all the pretty colors.... :)

I also got another visitor who got me some pretty jewelry and headbands to wear that will hopefully go with my short hair (i think it will) and also some SOCKS....YAY!! to add to my sock collection!!! :) and also the cutest little tote bag. She knows me too well and has been awesome thru this journey.

Ummm oh yeah one more thing that happened today (it just keeps on coming, today by FAR has been the most interesting/exhausting/odd/hardest day EVER.)

Well one of my antibiotics gave me the little rash i was talking about last night and today it got ONE MILLION TIMES WORSE. I got to a point that I was so ITCHY I wanted to jump up and start jumping around dancing doing the itchy dance that they do in the movies. And of course, the more I itched it the worse it got and the more I thought about it the worse it got. I couldn't sleep because I was itchy. I started to tear up because it was so painful to itch my legs, stomach, and chest over and over and it was just awful. FINALLY my nurse (the ONE thing she did great today) called my doctor and he ordered a hydrocortisone injection that they gave me right away that helped after about 30 minutes but those 30 minutes were BRUTAL. my skin was irritated and red. My mom kept re-wetting washcloths with cold water to help soothe my skin and was putting in on me and I was just so uncomfortable and every way I turned there was hair all over my pillows and it bothered me...my blankets were tangled up....it bothered me...I didn't have ice in my water so it wasn't cold...it bothered me...my feet were getting hot...it bothered me...i had limited movement because I had a blood pressure cuff on me, an oxygen figer thing on my other hand and I was connected to my "husband" (the IV thingy). it was just a bad situation. So bad that I wanted to take an ice bath....and ice baths are like the worse thing EVER!!! lol

finally they got me some hydrocortisone cream for more relief and now it's under control. I'm taking benadryl and hopefully the redness and bumps go away soon. it's just ugly and I hate my skin looking this way. :(

Alright so with all that excitement for the day, I'll write more tomorrow. thanks for reading. You all know I love you. I've had a tough day today but I feel better now that I have my pandora going and I get my sleeping pills soon and tranquilizer injection (lol thats what I call it because as soon as I get it like 2 minutes later I'm knocked out). Oh and i don't remember if i said this before but I got a stronger sleepy pill and it seems to help but still when you sleep all day when you feel terrible at night your just not ready to go to sleep but you know you have to because every morning is an early morning.

So good night people. Have a good night, be safe and an even better day tomorrow!! :)

xoxo


smiles.


Kim. :)


i covered up my pillow pet so he doesn't get his hair all over the place either. it also help keeps him warm. :)

this is the "typical" amount of hair I lose (without a scrub hat on) when I take about an hour or so nap.....crazy right?? and on top of that it's all over my gown too and probably my floor where I have to shake myself off and hair goes flying EVERYWHERE (think of an annoying dog who runs inside the house and immediately shakes himself off thinking he's doing you a favor....yeah....sorry house keeping. lol)

and the much anticipated picture of the hair.....it's thinning out in the front (you can see my scalp now) but I have this headband that i wear (you can kinda see it) that helps cover it up a bit.......i hate short hair but yeah I know....i look good. LOL. just kidding.....but really, don't i kinda somewhat in a little mike myers kinda way pull it off?? LOL. love you guys!