LOU'S TUNE-UP
Yesterday, Monday, Kathy, Vanessa and I took Lou to her meeting with Dr. Hancock. She had her blood tests taken and Kathy, Mark and I met with Dr. Hancock who looked at Lou and said she didn't look too good and needed a tune-up by spending the night in the hospital. He said that her extended stomach was due to fluid retention that is caused by the cancer that he wanted to drain and he wanted to use for chemo the carboplatain treatment that she had responded well to before to treat the cancer. He booked her into the last room in Harris Hospital after finding no room at Baylor hospital. She would have to wait for a room to open on the chemo floor. To say we weren't prepared is an understatement. We had thought we would be back home by dark.
She checked into room 818 with a great nurse who took care of preparing her. They said that they couldn't find the form we filed on Medical Power of Attorney. They contacted the Chaplain's office and we got a wonderful Baptist chaplain named appropriately with a Bibical name of Saul. Dora Saul took care of getting the papers together, rounding up a couple of strangers to witness Lou's signing the papers, took them to be filed and brought us a copy. Then we tried to recruit her to the Methodist church where women pastors are more appreciated. Found out that she was raised in New York by missionary parents but spent every summer with her rancher grandparents in the Panhandle. We got to discuss literature and she said she would Google Lou to find all of her books. We also recommended Bill Neal's books on West Texas early justice. She had relative who is lawyer and politician in WTx. She was trying to decide whether to pursue a MD degree or work on a nutritionist degree. She has Chron's disease and had her best advice from a nutritionist. Our daughter Kathy is also looking at that field as a second career.
The bad news was when they took Lou for the parenthesiology (sp?) at 11:30 in the ultrasound laboratory the technician said they could find no fluid to remove. This means the masses are caused by cancer buildups. Dr. Hancock came by after getting the news and said that her stomach sounded like a drum. His belief is that the carboplatain will shrink the cancer and consequently reduce the size of her stomach which in turn will relieve the compressed stomach return her appetite and correct her bowel movements. The good news was that we could go back home to normalcy. Kathy spent the night with Lou in the hospital room. I slept in a bed at Mary Kathyn's home and on the way there stopped for $1.399 gas at Racetrack and picked up a toothbrush as my only travel utensil. It worked great and my mouth felt good enough to let me sleep. Now I am looking forward to shaving in the morning. This is only the second time in recent history that I haven't shaved in the morning.
Lou got discharged at 2:30 and they finally got a chair to bring her down to the car and we left FW at 3:33 and home at 5:30 into the setting sun. Kathy made it but I know she was tired. They gave Lou chemo from midnight to 2:30 so Kathy didn't exactly get a good night's sleep in the recliner.
Lou is glad to be home where she has her own bed. One other thing that Dr. Hancock did was give her a prescription for liquid morphine to help control the pain and she has started using that. So she should be happy now.
Your prayers are a great help. She has had good nurses at every turn. And we finally met a Harris Chaplain.
PS. Lou has not felt like working on her email for a couple of weeks and I don't know when she will. Please be patient with her.
Thanks.
Yesterday, Monday, Kathy, Vanessa and I took Lou to her meeting with Dr. Hancock. She had her blood tests taken and Kathy, Mark and I met with Dr. Hancock who looked at Lou and said she didn't look too good and needed a tune-up by spending the night in the hospital. He said that her extended stomach was due to fluid retention that is caused by the cancer that he wanted to drain and he wanted to use for chemo the carboplatain treatment that she had responded well to before to treat the cancer. He booked her into the last room in Harris Hospital after finding no room at Baylor hospital. She would have to wait for a room to open on the chemo floor. To say we weren't prepared is an understatement. We had thought we would be back home by dark.
She checked into room 818 with a great nurse who took care of preparing her. They said that they couldn't find the form we filed on Medical Power of Attorney. They contacted the Chaplain's office and we got a wonderful Baptist chaplain named appropriately with a Bibical name of Saul. Dora Saul took care of getting the papers together, rounding up a couple of strangers to witness Lou's signing the papers, took them to be filed and brought us a copy. Then we tried to recruit her to the Methodist church where women pastors are more appreciated. Found out that she was raised in New York by missionary parents but spent every summer with her rancher grandparents in the Panhandle. We got to discuss literature and she said she would Google Lou to find all of her books. We also recommended Bill Neal's books on West Texas early justice. She had relative who is lawyer and politician in WTx. She was trying to decide whether to pursue a MD degree or work on a nutritionist degree. She has Chron's disease and had her best advice from a nutritionist. Our daughter Kathy is also looking at that field as a second career.
The bad news was when they took Lou for the parenthesiology (sp?) at 11:30 in the ultrasound laboratory the technician said they could find no fluid to remove. This means the masses are caused by cancer buildups. Dr. Hancock came by after getting the news and said that her stomach sounded like a drum. His belief is that the carboplatain will shrink the cancer and consequently reduce the size of her stomach which in turn will relieve the compressed stomach return her appetite and correct her bowel movements. The good news was that we could go back home to normalcy. Kathy spent the night with Lou in the hospital room. I slept in a bed at Mary Kathyn's home and on the way there stopped for $1.399 gas at Racetrack and picked up a toothbrush as my only travel utensil. It worked great and my mouth felt good enough to let me sleep. Now I am looking forward to shaving in the morning. This is only the second time in recent history that I haven't shaved in the morning.
Lou got discharged at 2:30 and they finally got a chair to bring her down to the car and we left FW at 3:33 and home at 5:30 into the setting sun. Kathy made it but I know she was tired. They gave Lou chemo from midnight to 2:30 so Kathy didn't exactly get a good night's sleep in the recliner.
Lou is glad to be home where she has her own bed. One other thing that Dr. Hancock did was give her a prescription for liquid morphine to help control the pain and she has started using that. So she should be happy now.
Your prayers are a great help. She has had good nurses at every turn. And we finally met a Harris Chaplain.
PS. Lou has not felt like working on her email for a couple of weeks and I don't know when she will. Please be patient with her.
Thanks.
posted by Dr. Rodenberger at 8:05 PM
1 Comments:
Lots of prayers are coming from California. Many wishes for a happy New Year!
Kayla
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