Is it not amazing?......A small glimmer of hope and it feels like half the world has been lifted off my shoulders. Today is 5 weeks that Jimmy has been in isolation.
If each day can get a litter better like yesterday and today then I can definitely take whatever else gets thrown at me. I had a lot of paperwork to catch up on this morning and I had to buy dog food. I must just mention that I am a planner and an over analyser. We have systems in place in this house and for example the new dog food would be bought long before the current one runs out because you never know what happens. It's quite funny actually because the -you never know what happens- drives Jimmy mad. Well this planning has now gone to the dogs of late. It's nothing unusual to actually run out of toilet paper, milk, sugar, washing powder, shampoo etc
Anyway, as I was saying....so I got to the hospital quite a bit later than normal and missed Dr Fine. I asked the sister about the x-rays of Jimmy's chest and he said that his lungs were much better. I think I also forgot to tell you all that Jimmy had his last Neupogen injection on Sunday as his white blood cell count was at 4.8 and had been in the 4's for a few days and Prof was happy with this. Yesterday they were 4.3 and they were 4.3 today again. In case you have forgotten; they will drop off now that he is off the Neupogen injections and then we wait for his body to bring the counts up by itself. They added another medication to his IV line today. If I'm not mistaken it is ASHS which is an immune booster derived from plants. Jimmy was still off oxygen today, the blood in his urine is clear and he did not have to be nebulised. He had some platelets today again but didn't need a blood transfusion. Prof Novitzky and Dr Fine have now both agreed that when Jimmy is ready to eat he can eat. No more forcing him which just ends up with him vomiting everything he has had to eat and drink, including the food which they are feeding him via the tubes. I think this has really taken the pressure of Jimmy because I could literally see his face turn green when the tray was brought into his room.
They bathed him in bed again as he is still too weak to get up and stand in the shower and then he settled in the lazy boy and was still there and fast asleep when I left this evening. He still isn't very talkative but he is responding to me when I talk to him and there isn't so much of that starring into thin air when I can see he has no idea what I am talking about. Each day the sores in his mouth look a little better. Today was the first time that he actually slept with his mouth closed and was breathing through his nose as the swelling has come down quite a bit. Before he could not close his mouth and his tongue was so swollen it was almost too big for his mouth and he would fall asleep and blood and yucky stuff would just run or dribble out the corners of his mouth. His lips are looking much better too and he only has one ugly sore on the outside corner of his mouth left now, apart from the ones inside. I believe we have turned that corner now, the next step surely will be watching sport on TV again and you won't hear me complain.
The medical aid are churning out the bills now. When I have some spare time I actually want to go through them and see where we are standing with regards to cost since April 2014. Whenever the medical aid process a claim I get an email confirmation of it with a copy of the account. Sometime earlier in this month I received 72 emails in one day with the average account being about R2000,00 and then there were a good 4 or 5 that were over R10 000,00 each. This morning was another one of those days where we received a whole lot of accounts from the blood transfusion department for claims between the 10th and 20th of February and these amounted to R90 000.00. We haven't even received any bills from Prof or Dr Fine yet and will only receive the account for the hospital once Jimmy is discharged. Scary stuff! If you are on a medical aid make sure you are covered.
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| Jimmy fast asleep in the lazy boy - his face even looks more peaceful when he sleeps now. |
xx
5 comments:
Vivienne, I have been reading your blog for a couple of weeks now and have to say that I am in awe of you. What an amazingly strong person you are. I can only hope to be half as strong when my husband starts his stem cell transplant process next month. Stay strong and best wishes to you and Jimmy.
Hi Vivienne. I've been following closely this last ten days. Things finally seem to be resolving for the best. I hope for you both that each day now will be brighter.
Hi Debra,
It's lovely to have you on here. I am so sorry to hear about your husband. Yep, blogs are great. I am in contact with 3 awesome people via blogs. Two have had stem cell transplants and the third is a carer to her husband. It really has been a wealth of information for me and the best part is you just have to send a message for some advice etc. If you scroll down my home page you will find a list of the blogs I follow on the bottom left hand side.
Please contact me via my email address: viviennesmith68@gmail.com (this is the one associated with my blog) I would love to get in touch and hear more about his diagnosis, where you live etc
I promise that you will be strong, you have no choice. It is just something that happens, you don't have to worry about this. The best advice I ever got was that I must remember that one day I will be able to look back on this and I mustn't see the negative but rather all the blessings that have come about because of Jimmy's diagnoses with Multiple Myeloma.
I truly have so many that I have lost count.
xx
Hi John,
Indeed.....indeed. I still had that nervous feeling in my stomach when I woke up this morning but tomorrow morning I am looking forward to appreciating the view from our veranda before I go though to the hospital. I feel like even the traffic jam will be a welcome bit of time out for a change.
Thanks again, so very much, for your wonderful emails and long explanations to my on going questions.
I look forward to your next blog
xx
The MM blogging community is truly amazing! There you are Viv in SA, and John above and I are in the US. So glad you reached out to this network of MM-ers and experienced SCT-ers for support and information! I hadn't seen John's blog before, and I just read several of his pages! I'll be checking his blog from now on too. Crazy MM, but amazing people! Wishing Jimmy all the best in his recovery, and your daily posts are so inspiring and heartwrenching at the same time. He sure has been challenged with this. Bet it will make his body all the stronger, and he'll have a loooooooong remission!!! xoxo
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