He’s still kickin

Posted by Sammy on Dec 30th, 2009 | no comments

Last night I was so beat that I chose to not turn my laptop on to type up a blog post regarding how Gary did yesterday. So sorry if you’ve been waiting for an update. He’s still holding on!

Last night he maintained an oxygen level in the 90s and this morning I came in seeing it start at 98 and even go to 100 a few times

Because he’s doing so well they started reducing his oxygen saturation. Within an hour he went from 100 to 75% and his oxygen levels are still in the 90s!

Clearly Gary is one hell of a fighter!!!

And the rollercoaster begins

Posted by Sammy on Dec 29th, 2009 | 7 comments

Yesterday was a good day so that means by default today would be a bad day right? Right! It started off with me arriving and being told that they want to paralyze Gary so that the machine will take over all of his breathing because even with being sooooooo sedated he was still fighting the machine. Then I noticed his hands were swelling and I couldn’t get his wedding band off. Which meant the inevitable. They had to cut the wedding band that I placed on his hand 5 years ago off. Thankfully I wasn’t in the room when they did it but just knowing they had to do it brought me to tears.

I also broke down when his phone rang and it was his oncologist’s secretary calling to remind him of tomorrow’s appointment. Sadly he would not be there. I started crying because instead he is in icu fighting for his life. Something NO one expected. We did get a bit of good news today. His ommaya tap came back clear for infection AND lymphoma. So the delusions were not caused by anything in his CSF. Also his kidney doc was happy to see some of his numbers go down. They are practically normal, he just now needs to pick up his urination.

Right now we are living hour to hour, day to day. As his current oncologist said today, the hardest part of pneumonia in a cancer patient is the first 48 hours because that’s when its the most critical. He said that if he’s talking to me again in 72 hours that means Gary is improving. I sure hope I get to see him on Thursday.

More importantly tonight I hope for NO phone calls. I haven’t had any yet but the time when I’m at home scares me to death because its the only time I’m away from Gary. I would never forgive myself if something were to happen to him if I was away. I know he understands that I need to go home and rest. I wouldn’t expect him to stay all day and night at the hospital if the roles were reversed, but still, you have that guilt.

Till tomorrow!

“My Wife…I Love Her”

Posted by Sammy on Dec 27th, 2009 | 4 comments

I thought yesterday was rough but I was wrong. Today was definitely a lot rougher on me. It was an emotional rollercoaster and quite frankly I’m already over that. I started off the day being able to communicate with Gary. He clearly knew who I was he just wasn’t sure if I was real. He had so many doctors and nurses come in. I had to give consent to do so many things. They had to put a central line into his neck. Good thing he has had one before with chemo so I knew what it would look like. They ended up having to sedate him because he was fighting them which of course caused his oxygen levels to go down. There were times when he was so calm and then times when he’s be yelling or talking nonsense. At one point he was convinced he was talking and seeing his oncologist (Dr. P) but the doc wasn’t in the hospital at all. It was horrifying to see him like this. It was 1000x worse than yesterday.

His delusions got the best of him. It got him intubated (not sure if I’m spelling that right). I was in his room with my fabulous friend, Mel, and he started to get up and take off his leads and his mask and was getting ready to leave. We couldn’t convince him to relax and had to get the nurses to get him back. We got out of his room and waited outside. I peeked into his room and saw one of his nurses holding him so that he could breathe. It was horrible but then I heard the last words that came from his mouth “My Wife I Love Her”. I started crying and was so glad Mel was there with me. We went back to the waiting room. A few minutes later heard over the loudspeaker an alert calling to his room and I jumped up and started walking back and one of the nurses found me and got my permission to intubate him. Of course I willingly let them do whatever they needed to do to help him out.

I’ll admit like I did to everyone that called or was able to stop by the hospital to be by my side today that seeing him intubated was HARD but it was so much easier on me that seeing him delusional and fighting and declining. Around 6pm they started his first dialysis which lasted 2.5 hours. He did GREAT. Of course we won’t know how well until they run his labs in the morning. But I’m a numbers girl like he’s a numbers guy and his heartrate and oxygen levels were both staying down the entire time he was on dialysis and to me that’s a good thing.

After they were done with dialysis and the room was somewhat cleared out. I went back in the room with his mom and walked up next to him and had my hand on his shoulder. I started talking to him and his heartrate went from the 120s to around 108 which to me is FANTASTIC. As soon as I let go it went right back up to the 120s. So he clearly was responding to my voice and touch. So of course I put my hand back to comfort him. I told him to keep fighting. He’s done so well while on chemo that this is nothing. He’s in fabulous hands with some fantastic nurses and he’s got the medicine he needs. I gave him a big kiss from me and Mikey even if it was through a paper mask. I told him I’d be back first thing in the morning and that I loved him which was the most important.

At this point no call tonight is a GOOD thing. I thank all of our friends and family members that are out there thinking and praying for us. We appreciate it and it means the world to us to know that we have such a great support system. This is a hard time for us right now and its just another bump in the road. For some reason we’ve got another test, as if our love hasn’t been tested enough.

My husband….I love Him!