Two Weeks Tuesday

6:30 am

I came to Kingston on May 1 presumably just for an outpatient consultation (although I was feeling sick enough that I hoped they would take me in), so it is now two weeks ago that I was admitted.  I've never been in hospital more than a few nights in a row before so this is a big deal.  I guess it is also an indication that I have had a pretty good life and not needed hospitals much.

Last night was much better than the night before.  I think that the problems the night before were made worse by physical arrangement of the bile bag.  As it filled up in the night it put more stress on the spot where the tube enters my body and pulled and pulled there.  Last night we had a different arrangement and everything went better.  That spot, where the tube from the bile bag enters my body, is still the sorest spot.

It will get readdressed today as they are going to put some dye into my body to trace the path through the stent and try to see why the stent does not work when the drain to the bag is turned off.  Of course the obvious answer is that it is blocked somewhere but maybe they can find out where and make some adjustment to the stent so that it will do what it was meant to do.  In the process I will get the wound cleaned and a new dressing put on.

I'm not sure how many plan B's they have if that does not work so any talk of going home has stopped until they get something working.

There is a new male patient somewhere else on the floor who is upsetting the happy aura of this otherwise surprisingly cheerful place.  He is yelling and cursing the nurses and keeps calling out for or at someone called Kevin.  I'm sure this can be a scary place if you don't understand why you are here or feel imprisoned, but the nurses and all levels of staff here have been great.  They obviously care and do try to make people as comfortable as possible, answering unnecessary buzzer calls again and again with smiles in their voices.  In some ways one could almost stay here for a holiday (well no, not really) but they would have to do something about the food.

The main entrees for meals are made in Mississauga.  They are sealed in plastic dishes and maybe even frozen before being shipped to the hospitals.  Here they are steamed in a little oven.  I think each floor has an oven so there is no waiting for food to come up from the basement.  "Steamplicity", they call it.  So I have meals described as "grilled boneless chicken breast with vine-ripened tomato sauce, wild rice medley and fresh mini carrots and baby peas". And there are several choices in a similar vein.  Once you have had a couple of them though and realize that the grilling of the chicken was done over a week ago, all that fancy talk translates to "rubbery meat with tasteless soggy vegetables" and that same description can be applied to almost every choice.  They do make sandwiches locally and I've enjoyed their egg salad several times.  Today, I hope I miss both breakfast and lunch and when I come back from the OR I'll send someone down for something like chicken nuggets from the cafeteria.  I've got to be careful though or I'll get tired of the chicken nuggets.

The yelling down the hall has stopped so maybe they have figured out how to handle the guy.

In short, I'm better than yesterday and hopeful that they can get the stent working.  With that I'll leave you for now.

9:15

A nurse just stuck her head in and said I'm going down for work on that stent at 9:30.

10:45

I'm back.
Of course the real reason I was in bad shape yesterday morning is that they turned the tap on the bile bag the day before that.  The bile was then supposed to flow down through the stent from my liver, past the gall bladder and into my small intestine.  The guy confirmed with dye and pictures that the stent was in the right place but the bile was blocked near the end of the stent by something that prevented the bile from flowing out the bottom end of the stent into the intestine, so it presumably leaked around the top of the stent and into my bloodstream and contributed to the infection.

Since I was not sedated and he was not prepared for surgery, he could not push anything into the stent to try to push the blockage out the end.  He could not see what the blockage was but he could tell that there were no gallstones there.  He can try again another day with me sedated, but his feeling at that moment was that I'd had enough for a while and his suggestion was that I could go home with the bile bag still on for a few days.  The other could even be done as an outpatient.  Presumably my surgeon and the chemo doctor and the palliative care doctor will have some say in all of this and lay out some sort of plan of action and when that plan is in place I can go home.  I don't know how long it will take but I expect more doctor visits today.

I phoned Anne this morning and she sounds a little like she is getting a cold or a flu.  I encouraged her to stay home and build herself up a bit.  She has come here every day except for the one day she had an MRI in Lindsay.  I need her healthy so I think I have talked her into staying home today and maybe coming 2 days out of 3 or even just every second day.

That time gap in the previous paragraph, that you would not have noticed, was Dr Iforgethisname but who is my chemo guy.  He says there is something that I have forgotten the name of already that is at a fairly high level in my blood that they have to get down to a lower level before the chemo will work properly.  He is very nice - I know I say that about almost everyone here - and will have a chat with the stent doctor and my surgeon Dr Nanji and try to decide what to do.  He may want the stent working ASAP as this will help get rid of the whatever it is in my blood.

I need to write down people's and drug and chemical names right away as I forget things so fast and then cannot explain my condition very well.

Don Phillips was in for an hour and a half or so.  He used to teach at the high school and retired 5 or 6 years before I did.

7:10 pm

I'm back.  Not much has happened medically.  No new reports from any doctor or word on that they will do next.  The young guys will likely troop in here at 6:30 am or so and the older ones will wander in whenever they can.  The younger one will likely suggest that I may be going home and the older ones will have some reason why not.  We will see.

After Don left I did have a good nap, even a sleep for a while and then phone calls from Mike Roach (computer teacher from Courtice, then the board office and then Clarke H.S.) and from Anne as well as a neighbourly visit from Cheryl Stevenson, who was a neighbour on Ranney St in Campbellford and lives in the neighbourhood of the hospital now.


(Warning: the next section contains mature content - why is it that only the most immature TV shows have that warning?)

Then dinner came and I was philosophizing on how it was strange that the hospital made excellent chicken fingers in its own cafeteria but the made-in-Mississauga, shipped-in-and-steamed ones were terrible when my innards just couldn't take it anymore.  I'd eaten about half of them but then started horking up the whole mess.  I didn't see my barf bag anywhere so went with the flow and refilled my dinner plate.  Nurse Aime didn't even let me say I was sorry and just cleaned the mess up with an understanding smile.

I've had a bit of a cleanup myself since then and then a rest.  I'm going to make a couple of phone calls and then call it a night.

Best Wishes to All