Day 13 and it's time to thank the staff at UMC

Heidi and Lorelei

The staff here is amazing . . . phenomenal.  Let me get out my thesaurus to find more synonyms to describe how great they are.  They are so upbeat and helpful and cheerful and positive and I need my thesaurus again.  The photos on this page are only a small number of these great people.  There are many more.  Maybe I should be thanking the HR department for hiring such wonderful people.

Heidi had a fever of 102F again today.  The theory that it is just something routine that occurs because she is neutropenic is gaining ground.  The blame it on the visitors theory lost ground today as nobody visited (except me, hmmmm . . .).  The contamination from fingers on the lip of drinking cups theory has not been discredited, of course, because nobody can prove that all of Heidi's cups today were not touched on the lip.  That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it.

 

Heidi and Polina



At first the infections resulted in chest x-rays, urine samples and blood samples.  Since the routine neutropenic infection theory has gained favor among the medical staff (who are uninformed about the alternatives) she is now on two different antibiotics.  One is delivered through the port twice a day and the other is delivered through the port 3 times a day.  The result is that she is now hooked up to Javier (the IV pump machine) several times a day. 

 

As if that isn't bad enough, the second antibiotic, Vancomycin, gives her an allergic reaction similar to what Penicillin does to her.  To prevent the itchies, they're also giving her benedryl.  I take benedryl at home sometimes.  Usually when I think I won't be able to sleep I'll skip a Claritin and take benedryl instead.  It knocks me out.  But for normal day-to-day desert allergies, I take Claritin, which was developed less than 30 years ago and has few side effects.  If you have allergic reactions in the hospital, it's benedryl or nothing. 



Heidi and Steve



Heidi, who has never taken anything stronger than Cabernet Sauvignon in her life, gets more than knocked out from benedryl.  She got the injection and the eyelids slammed shut like the doors at the beginning of Get Smart.  (Yes, I like my metaphores too.)  So they reduced her dose to a half of a half.  If my math is correct, I believe that is a quarter dose.  So now instead of getting drowsy she just gets grouchy.  (Oh, I didn't mean that, honey!)  That's okay, she's allowed.  I told the nurses to go next door to the children's hospital and get half of a half of a children's dose.  Unfortunately they listen to my dosing suggestions as much as they listen to my fever theories.  It won't stop me from suggesting, though.  It's what I do.  



Poomba, Kristy, Heidi, Jocelyn and Simba