friday was just about as eventful as i care to participate in EVER again. the day started off fine. we got up early and worked in the yard before it got too hot. later some friends came over to swim. randy was in his room drumming, getting ready to light the BBQ, when he started shaking. not in a seizure way, but like he was just dropped into the Bering sea and was in the water for 5 minutes, can't catch your breath way. well let me back up. 45 minutes before that, he had to go get his "line" flushed because there was blood in it. they said it was no big deal, so then he came home and 45 minutes later started shaking.
so he went and covered up in bed, trying to get warm. i took his temp, it was fine at the moment. all i could think of is maybe he had a blood clot and they just loosened it and now it's in his heart. i start crying, but if you know me, usually i handle things first and i don't cry until it's all over. i had a house full of people, thank goodness they were all good friends, i walked out sobbing told everyone to get out and said we're going to the E.R.
our friend Mike realized i can't drive so he threw us both in our truck and drove 85 miles an hour down 44, through the construction with the hazards blinking making people move, not that they all did, which is for another blog..." rules of the road!", but anyways, we got to the E.R. just to sit there with him shaking, starting to spike a fever, around a bunch of sick people and some guy with a tooth ache. ok, if you have a tooth ache, do you REALLY need to be in the er taking time away from little babies who need to be seen for extremely high fevers and guys with their legs half hanging off?!?!?! grrr. GO HOME AND TAKE TYLENOL! (breath)
so they take his vitals, send him back out, with a mask and he sits there for 2 hours. he's getting worse and i want to scream. i decided to walk around the corner to the oncology unit, and started crying. his nurses hold me and said they are working on getting him a room. (i called them on our way to the hospital so they kicked people out of his room and got it ready. i LOVE his nurses!!!) they told me he is going to be fine and so i went back and waited another HOUR! oh, and by the way, my cell phone dies in the middle of this whole thing and there are people that i want to talk to and now can't get ahold of.
so after an hour, i walk BACK down to talk to his nurses, and they were mad that E.R. hasn't even seen him yet. his dr called while i was standing there and was also mad. he told them to go GET him out of that germ infested hallway since he has no immune system to be found. she marched right down there and grabbed him from the nurse who was just finally getting around to checking him out. checked him into his room and immediately started antibiotics. i still had no idea what was going on. all i knew is that he was really sick, the kids and doggies were taking care of and i'm not leaving his side until i knew what the heck was going on. come to find out (the next morning) is that he was neutropenic and had an infection, meaning his white blood cells were at almost zero, and if we hadn't taken him in when we did, he would have died within hours, because of a bacterial infection. the dr. said that it's not like healthy people having germs all around us, with randy, it can actually kill him within hours, and if we don't do something about it, infection spreads like wildfire and there's no way of catching it.
he's doing great today. they controlled his nausea and fever. they are getting his white blood cell count up with painful injections, and he should be able to come home soon. i plan on bleaching the whole house today, furniture and all. i don't care. bleach is going into the carpet shampooer, in the dish water, toilets, etc... if you have an aversion to bleach, don't come over. actually, he won't be able to have company this week. no more taking for granted his immune system, no matter how tough he feels. i'm back to being the hand sanitizer Nazi that i was in the beginning.
