A Day In The Life......

Thursday, October 20, 2005

New Room, New Complications

Karl got moved to room 281. The large corner rooms nurse call button was not working properly and they couldn't get it fixed. He's in a smaller room with minimal windows and no private toilet, just a curtain.
We had another problem last night, Karl's blood pressure dropped to 80 over 50 YIKEs! They don't want it dropping lower than 90 or he might leak out his veins.
He was on oxygen most of the night but was back to normal this morning. Unfortunatelly they didn't give him the 1am dose of IL2. He did however get his dose this morning at 9am. I was able to talk to the Chemo Nurse some more. We also found out that the reason for his fluid retention last time and the unable to pee was due to all the demerol he was getting. So he has a choice, suffer through the violent shakes and teeth chattering and other side effects with minimal comfort or get a catheter and demerol. Karl decided to hold out as long as he can to use the demerol.
Dr. Wyzinski was also in and says he's doing 8 to 10 dosages IF we get this far. There are concerned about his blood pressure, it was back down this morning and they are hoping fluids will keep him steady rather than crossing over into drug management.
He was feeling ok this morning, ate breakfast and changed his clothes and brushed his teeth.
He had a renal/kidney consult and a cardio consult today. I had to leave when the renal consult came in due to visiting hours. This is just precautionary, as the side effects can cause permanent damage to his kidneys and anything with blood pressure the cardiologist has to be there.

Dr. Wyzinski called Dr. Figlin, the father of this protocol. Figlin recommends 8 to 10 doses and we might be doing more rounds as two hospital stays account for one round of treatment. After this stay HOPEFULLY we will be doing scans and it's up in the air if there will be another hospital stay before thanksgiving. But we will start up again in December with this going on for several months.

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