Long session at St. Mark's Hospital

I am at home after spending the period from late on the night of January 31 to nearly noon today fighting flu and pneumonia at St. Mark's. I was transported there by EMTs after they responded to a 911 call placed after I had collapsed on the floor and couldn't get back up and then threw up all the undigested dinner from more than 3 hours earlier. Emma had called Nancy thinking that they could come help get me up but Mike said the vomiting was a sign of a concussion and maybe when I fell I had suffered a concussion. I did not think so but after one of the EMTs did an EKG on me he insisted that I had to go to the ER at a hospital and Em's choice was which hospital. The doctor in the ER ordered a scan of my head and an additionl EKG was done and they found no reasons for my collapse. Several other activities in the ER before I was finally admitted to the hospital and a room was found for me a little before 3:00 AM.

I am sure that many of my readers are acquainted with hospital routine especially the number times a patient will be awakened in the night for blood draws, etc., and how difficult it is to get much sleep. Chest x-rays on my part showed congestion so I was awakened for breathing exercises and I had my vitals taken every 4 hours. Infusion of an antibiotic started on the first day and continued with the addition of a second antibiotic until I was discharged. This went on until I was discharged this morning, but I was told that I would be self administering the 2 antibiotics until the course of treatment totaled 14 days for each. So I will give myself primasix 3 times a day and vancomycin twice.

I have talked to people at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and will go back to resume treatments on the 14th. St. Mark's hospital has been giving me the medications on the list from Huntsman and with the exception of Thalidomide, and a single injection of Lovenox, I am up to date on those medications.

The next post should be about my cancer recovery, story; I almost forgot that Dr. Kuo, our primary care physician, told me Monday that my flu was H1N1 (swine). I asked him how I could have caught that and he said that my immune system is badly compromised by the chemo that I probably could catch anything. A not very satisfying answer.