St. Mark's Hospital stay between 2 clinic visits

On Monday morning I rode up in the elevator from the garage level with Abby, my favorite PA, and when she asked how I am doing I told her about some pains in my upper abdomen that I have had and that have been getting worse over the past week. She told me that some of the medications that I take have side effects that include generation of acid in the stomach and she would write me a prescription for Prilosec, which she said would control the acid. She later brought the prescription to me and when I studied it later I saw that it was written for Omeprazole, which I have been taking at night for quite some time and it turns out that it is generic for Prilosec. I mentioned this to one of the nurses and she came back to see me later and said that Abby had said that I could take 2 pills a day. But of course I couldn't fill the prescription at the Huntsman pharmacy because of the Labor Day holiday and when I tried to fill it at the nearby Walgreen's I learned that Humana would not allow it to be filled before the 14th of this month. Fortunately I had enough pills left from the last filling that I can take 2 a day until the 14th and it has worked marvelously. When Abby took my bone marrow biopsy today I told her how well the Omeprazole had worked and thanked her for her prescience.

Tuesday morning Emma fainted as she was coming out of the main floor bathroom and fell flat on her face, cutting her lip, possibly putting another break in her nose and bruising her right eye and hip. I cleaned up the blood and told her I couldn't lift her and maybe should call a neighbor to help or call 911. After a bit she was able to scoot herself over to the couch to lie down where she rested for a while. I again asked if she wanted me to call 911 but she said that I should instead call our internist for his advice, which I tried to do, but it was his day off and when I told the nurse why we wanted to see him she told me to get her to the ER immediately. The ER at St. Mark's hospital was a lesson in patience. We must have been there well before noon and did not get into an examination room until everybody else, save one, in the filled waiting room had been taken and it was sometime just before 4:00. Once there it was a beehive of activity with the ER doctor looking at her lip and then a needle put in her arm for a blood draw, a saline drip started, contacts put on for a heart monitor, an EKG, a chest x-ray, and then she was wheeled off for a CT scan of her head and all the while a nurse was pestering her for a urine sample, which she said she couldn't do until she had some liquids. Much later the ER doctor came back to say that all the tests were normal except the blood work showed that she had a serious bladder infection, which may have caused the fainting, and an antibiotic drip was added while he started sewing up the cut lip. Much more waiting while they looked for a room for her to spend the night, which we didn't get into until after 9:00. I stayed around to help answer the night nurse's questions and I didn't get home after a brief stop to pick up a sandwich until 10:05. One tiring day.

Dr. Kuo, the internist both of us see, came in to see Emma while I was visiting her Wednesday morning and said that he wanted to keep her in the hospital for 2 more days, but on his visit early Thursday morning he was persuaded that he should allow her to go home that day because of the complications that a Friday release would cause in my schedule for tests at the BMT clinic. She had walked with a therapist on Wednesday and had tried some stair steps and thought that she could get around without much assistance at home. So I was allowed to bring her home Thursday, but with strict requirements that she use a walker and be supervised in all activities. She has steadfastly refused to honor those requirements and is actually doing quite well here at home. She goes in to see Dr. Kuo on the 16th to have the sutures removed and for an evaluation of her recovery.

The tests at the BMT clinic for me today consisted of the drawing of 12 vials of blood, 2 of which came from a needle in my arm, and a bone marrow biopsy. No scans with either a MRI or a PET, with one of either having been performed at the quarter ending test period always before. Dr. Tricot walked by as I was waiting for the biopsy and I asked him if I should come to the clinic next Monday, which should be day-one of the next maintenance cycle, inasmuch as I would be seeing him Tuesday morning and I had experienced a serious blood letting already this morning. He assured me that I should indeed come and treat Monday as a normal day-one.