Still Alive

I didn't bring my computer to the hospital and I'm pretty low on energy right now, but I'll give people the update:

I went to the hospital May 24th. My birthday. When I got there and they started getting me ready I was crying. I didn't want to be at the hospital. Jen stayed with me as long as she could and afterward I had an arguement with my sister on the phone which made me cry again. Despite this and the fact that I said I wanted no visitors, she said she was coming. I got many phone calls on my birthday, all except from grandma.

May 25th-Chemo starts. Shaina shows up and starts to cry. Then she told me that when grandma entered hosp. she started to cry and said, "it just hit me". I guess my family, never seeing me in the hosp. didn't think it was real. While they were there I started to get the chills. It ended up that by the time the family left I had a fever of 101.5 or something.

May 26th-May 28th-Lots of problems. Can't eat. Lost apetite and too much vomitting. Fever won't go down for longer than a couple of hours. Heart rate is dropping. BP is very low. About 70/35. They decide to stop chemo and move me to ICU. They strap me to a heart monitor and start the antibiotics.

May 29th-they do a blood transfusion. BTW-there is no privacy in ICU!!! Also for the past couple of days my legs have been swollen and its been hard to walk so they do a lower body sonogram thingy to see if I have blood clots. Also at some point this week they did blood cultures to see if I had CDT (C-diff). I did which only helped my vommitting and everything else. At this point fever is 103.

May 30th-I got moved out of ICU, but was still on heart monitor. It seemed like I was coming around.

May 31st-June 2nd-Things looking better, fever gone, BP up, heart rate still low but finally taken off monitor. Still not eating, still vommitting. BTW-its absolutely disgusting to vomit water. Since that was all that was in my stomach, thats what I vomitted.

June 3rd-June 6th-Things get bad again. Fever is back. It was during this period that things might have been the worst. The nurses added two IVs to my hands in addition to my port. I cried and said no. And thats when they yelled at me and said, "we have to many antibotics to give you and we need to give them to you right now. You are not going aseptic (when the infection reaches your blood). In addition to the 10 meds, they also gave me a plasma transfusion at this point as well. I also have a cough which makes me vomit which I've had since the beginning .

June 7th- I feel better. My blood counts are good and I want to go home. I'm still not eating and still coughing.

June 8th- My WBC are 38. I put on a happy face so they'll let me go home. I'm still coughing, vomitting, and weak, but I want to leave. Was I wrong to leave? I don't know.

Before I left I saw my doctor. He said that the toxicity level in my body had reached such a high level that my blood counts were gone before they had even finished chemo. It wasn't supposed to happen and he said it wouldn't happen again.

June 11th-Today I am home but I'm still not eating. I try. I really do. But b/c of the cough I vomit everything up. I'm still shaky and sick but every day I get better. What's really hard in this whole experience is that I almost died and that was only the second round. I still have six more to go and I don't know how I'm gonna make it. Part of me just wants to ask the doctor "how long do I have to live, if I stop treatment?" A year, 5 years...I don't know it seems so much easier than making it through the next 6 months.

My faith is so weak right now. I wish so much I could be stronger. I know my thoughts and behavior are not pleasing to the Lord. There are so many people in worse trials than I. So anyway, I think that's it. The full story. I really wish my blog was happier. Unfortunately, its not. It's just the facts. I still love Christ. I don't want to fall away. I'm glad His hold on me is stronger than mine on Him.