Good drugs & BAD

It seems that we are having trouble getting through a couple days in a row without some exciement.

Yesterday was good - Jack just got some fluids in the clinic since his blood pressure was on the low side. Jack also has some mouth sores from the chemo so they put a pain patch on his arm. I lent Dr Sanchorawala the necklace that I had on since she had a speach to make that evening and hers broke in the morning. His white blood count was > 0.2, red blood cells 3.74 and the platelets were up to 39 (remember he received 2 bags the day before). That was yesterday.

Now, back to reality. Today, Jack felt dizzy and it was all I could do to get him dressed and to the clinic. He was showing major signs of drug abuse - neither the doctors or I could get him to respond to questions or have any kind of conversation (worse than it has been). We have reduced the daily drugs that he is scheduled for. His labs were run and the results are - white blood cells are now 0.2 (we have lost the less than sign - he actually has some - although not too many but they are on the rise which is good news), his red blood cells are holding at 3.74 and the platelets were 20 so the plan was to give him 2 more bags of platelets. Should go just like Tuesday - right? WRONG.

After bag one of the platelets, Jack started shaking ( rigors as a reaction to the plasma that the platelet are in ) and so they gave him a shot of Demerol to control that. Well, we learned that Jack is allergic to Demerol. Shortness of breath, he started wheezing, broke out in a rash all over his body, etc. Now comes the Benedryl to control the allergic reaction. Out comes the oxygen to help him breathe. We thought he was too drugged before?? (They did also remove his pain patch in the hopes that he will begin to come out of the fog and back to us)

Once all of the above settled down, I went and got the car and the nurse brought Jack down to me in a wheelchair. That is all well and good but when I got back to the apartment, I had to convince him to get out of the car, in and out of the elevator and into the apartment. I made him macaroni & cheese for dinner since he has trouble eating anything that is not soft with the mouth sores. He sat at the table with it in front of him and was basically asleep sitting up. When I tried to get him to go to bed, he said that it was rash of me since he had not had one bite of his sandwich(?). After that, I felt that it was better just to leave him alone. The good news is that he is now in bed - but he did sit/sleep at the table for about 1 1/2 hours. (It looks like he did take a bite or two in that time!)

I have to wake him up at 9 PM to give him another pill but hopefully in the morning, he will be more willing and able to make our daily trek to the clinic!!