Slammer Sentence Continues: June 11, 2010

Day Five of my sentence continues (in Intensive Care, not the penitentiary). However, I have noted some similarities. I remain "locked in my 'cell'" 24/7. The food consists of nothing much more palatable than the bread and water rations for inmates. And at times, the punishment (also known as treatment) is brutal.

I apologize for the lapse in reporting. Wednesday and Thursday were challenging days. On Wednesday, care collasped on many fronts. While I most usually will receive exceptional care on this ICU floor, there are always exceptions. A combination of a young nurse, a lack of respect for a patient who advocates for her health care needs and concerns, violation of my HIPPA rights and failing access to veins reached a crescendo on Wednesday. Life in the slammer is certainly not without challenges.

My access to veins for chemotherapy and IV medications has really started to fail. When the IV was lost on Wednesday, it took 14 additional attempts to restart the IV. I even had to relent and agree to attempts to begin IVs in my feet, legs, and shoulders in addition to hands and arms. I am going to be one massive bruise when these IVs conclude.

Yesterday, hospital administration intervened with regard to the non-medical concerns and problems and it was a return to quality nursing care and attention. The IV has held overnight despite being placed in the bend of my wrist of my dominant right hand. Tomorrow night it will have to be replaced, please pray for a site to be easily located and accessed. Discussions continue regarding the risks versus benefits to me to have surgery to "install" a portacath into my chest - this would allow for direct access to the large veins that lead into the heart versus using peripheral veins as we currently are doing.

For reasons that I do not comprehend, schedules here in the "slammer" are quite inhumane. I am exhausted from lack fo sleep. Last night, I finished the fourth and final IV of the day at 11:30 PM. At 3 AM, the lab came to draw more blood. At 4 AM, radiology appeared for another chest x-ray. At 7 AM, the shifts change and the days begins again. I need to go home just to SLEEP.

If I improve over the weekend, it is planned that I will leave ICU Sunday evening. Then I will transition to outpatient IV therapy for a minimum of two additional weeks (seven days a week). Weekdays, I will go to my oncologists' infusion center for IVs and on the weekends, I will return back to this hospital's outpatient infusion center.

I am thankful to see the sunrise today. I am grateful for the amazing doctors and nurses who do respect my self advocacy as a patient and who go beyond the call of duty to help me to heal. I am blessed for family and friends who pray for me, visit me, and help to carry other burdens for me as I lay in this bed. I am eternally grateful for a Savior Who never leaves me, Who comforts me in the darkest hours when I am alone in ICU, and Who has rescued me from death's clutch, time and time again.