Today I found myself back sitting in a hospital room waiting with Shad to start his 3rd round of chemo.
He and his parents arrived at the hospital this morning around 9:45, about the same time the youngest daughter and I drove out of the driveway to head to California. They were pretty sure that they would actually get to stay this time, after being sent home on Monday and Wednesday because his counts were too low to start the Chemotherapy.
Shad was given the thumbs up and they were taken to a room around lunch time, right around when the youngest daughter and I were waiting in the longest, slowest line at the Wendy's in Yuma to purchase our value items from the value menu.
When the youngest daughter and I arrived at the hospital around 5:30, after a stop at the oldest daughter's house to unload and unpack for a little while, Shad was still receiving his pre-chemo hydration and was scheduled to start chemo around 7:00.
Shad was put into one of the smaller rooms in the ward today, because all the other rooms were full.
This room has two doors. The first enters into a small room with a sink, trash, supplies ... and then the second door opens into his actual room.
Every time the nurse would come into the outer area Shad would look up and excitedly exclaim, "Chemo time!" Then the nurse would come in and he would questioningly ask, "Chemo time?" and the nurse would say, "Not yet. This is just to get you ready for chemo or I just need to check your pee pee or I need to see why your machine is beeping..." and he would say, "Oh, OK." (This happened EVERY time someone came into the room. I lost count around 15.)
During one of these visits the nurse reported that there was a little blood showing up in Shad's urine and they were going to send a sample to the lab. This is pretty normal since he has the catheter tube, but protocol says it needs to be checked out and run past the oncologist before the chemo can start since one of the medications can cause bleeding. She let us know this might slow down the start of chemo.
Shad's dinner arrived and we spent some time getting him to eat and some more time listening to him explain all the reasons why he shouldn't eat any more and a little time all sampling the food he chose not to eat.
Then we spent some time discussing what WE should eat. The son-in-law's vote is always for Mexican food, but the oldest daughter was not in the Mexican mood. We aren't the best decision makers and so we finally decided to try to come up with a genre (the school teacher's word) of food that sounded like what we wanted. Immediately the son-in-law chose Spanish. Shad, who had been entertaining himself with his i-pad and seemed to be ignoring our discussion until then, piped up "That's Mexican food" and the girls in the room all laughed and thanked him for watching out for us so his dad didn't trick us.
We finally decided on pizza and wings and eventually agreed on where to get it from, what kind we wanted, how to order it, who was going to go get it, and which car was going to be driven. The two daughter's left to get the pizza, the son-in-law returned his attention to the football game and I enjoyed having Shad show me all the new things that have been added to his i-pad since my last visit.
His mom found a Disneyland app that takes you on a little tour of all the attractions.
You can click on the various places and play a short game or experience part of the ride...
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| Wow! Woody is really moving on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. |
It is fun, but made Shad wonder when he was going to Disneyland again. He was content with the answer, "When you aren't sick anymore."
Shad has lots of movies on his i-pad. He likes to watch them, applying the skip button liberally, and it seems that at the moment his favorite part of any movie is the closing credits. He can watch those over and over again and either hums the musical score or sings along if there are words. Wall-E is his current favorite. "We're Going Down...".
Shad also has some doctor/hospital related videos that he enjoyed sharing with me tonight. One of them, a music video, shows a little girl who is sick hanging out in her room while her friends are playing outside her window. I don't know what the song is called, but the refrain that plays numerous times, accompanied by a catchy little tune, says "You've got to be patient to be a patient."
I enjoyed my i-pad/grandson entertainment and then I enjoyed my pizza. The nurse came in and said she had talked to the oncologist and he wasn't worried about the urine culture and that she could go ahead with chemo, so she started the pre-chemo meds and told us the night nurse would be in in a while to begin the chemo.
We were left to our own devices for some time, our electronic devices that is.
Shad on his i-pad, the girls playing Skip-bo together on their phones, the son-in-law watching the TV and me with my camera. Then the night nurse arrived with the message that she just had to double check the chemo bags and she would be in to start. "Yeah! Chemo!". The first round of chemo in the 5 day series lasts for about 4 hours so we were happy that it would be starting soon, around 8:00, so it could be finished at a somewhat reasonable hour.
About 15 minutes later the nurse returned, a little flustered, with the unfortunate news that one of the chemo bags had leaked all over inside its Ziploc and that it would need to be replaced with a new bag. However, the pharmacy was closed for the night so they were going to have to call a pharmacist to come back to the hospital to make it. She wasn't sure how long this was going to take, but she needed to stop the pre-meds and put Shad back on fluids again.
I felt bad for the nurse, who obviously was upset at the delay. As she worked on changing out all the bags, I had to smile as Shad's i-pad provided the background music, "You've got to be patient to be a patient", over and over again. Apparently you also have to have patience to be a nurse, or a parent or a grandma too. I think we are all going to learn to be a little more patient in 2013, whether we want to be or not.
Patience is a good trait to have though, so this is probably a positive thing.
Chemo finally started about 11:30 and ended in the wee hours of the morning. It was a long night for Shad and the oldest daughter.
The rest of us were lucky enough to be home patiently sleeping.
I think the son-in-law was probably grateful for the small room, with only enough space for one pull out chair bed, tonight.
Today I am thankful for
one on one time with the youngest daughter while we drove to California.
a husband that stays home, works, and takes care of things while I go play with the grandson.
Shad's positive attitude about the hospital and chemo and everything that goes along with it. He is truly amazing.
