Santa, Can We Take a Rain Check?

Mom's spending Christmas at St. Frannie's, but don't worry, she got the best Christmas present any of us could have given her since she's been there- no nausea or vomiting, and the BEST night's sleep in four weeks.

We brought her in to the Cancer Clinic yesterday morning around 10am because she had continued to struggle with the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. She felt and looked toxic, and even said to me, "I feel like I'm on the edge." Now anyone who knows my mother knows that she is no baby when it comes to feeling sick, so when she said that to me, I called her nurse and Judy confirmed that Mom should be seen. Didi and I wrapped her up in a cozy blanket, and in about an hour from leaving the house, Mom was asleep on a stretcher and receiving IV fluids next to a huge window, bathing in sunlight. Didi and I on the other hand, discovered the patient kitchen stocked with sandwiches, jello, apple sauce, every Polar beverage you could possibly imagine, and good ole' fashioned Lorna Doones. And the staff was decked out in holiday gear, and pleasant and attentive as always.

Long day short, we ended up going to the ER where Mom could be seen by a few other teams, including surgery, and have some pictures of her abdomen taken. Surgery (dinks) said she could go home, but the ER doc (so not a dink) and her oncologist (love at first sight), said they'd rather her have a CT scan with contrast and stay overnight. Contrast meaning mom had to somehow slug back three massive glasses of this kool-aid business and hold it in for two hours so they could see the colon best on the scan. She threw up right before Didi and I left, so I wasn't so sure that was going to go as planned, but wouldn't you know that the all-star got down two of those cocktails? Amazing...

After the CT scan, she was admitted to the oncology floor, which got me psyched, because mean-oncology-nurse is an oxymoron. We spoke before she went to sleep, and when she called at 7am today, she said she'd got the best night's sleep in weeks (thank you Ativan) and had no nausea (thank you compazine). The CT scan shows significant colitis (col=colon, itis=inflammation), which is due to the unrelenting little S#!* of an infection, c.diff. This explains the persistent nausea and diarrhea, and is nothing to be taken lightly. I think she thought that by showing how well she felt she could get sent home today, but her oncologist (love at first sight) made it a point to reiterate how serious of a condition this was for someone going in to chemo so soon. She'll have to be on more serious antibiotics in addition to what she's already on, and hopefully that will solve the problem. There's also a good chance that she will stay in the hospital for a few days getting lots of fluids, and making sure she can keep down ample foods and that the diarrhea resolves.

So yeah, it stinks that she's in on Christmas, but if she's comfortable, that's certainly the most important thing!