Wednesday: I try a new soup from ABP. By the end of the day my whole GI track is moving like a drunk sailor. What's going out of me has a strange dark black color, I blame it on the yesterday's barium and today's soup.
Thursday: At tango, I dance two songs and literally run out of breath. Have to stop and sit down. My back starts hurting, I ask somebody for a painkiller, joking that it's "that time of the month" for me. Stupid
Friday: I'm getting home, walking up from Harvard Sq station to the bus stop. At halfway have to stop for 5 minutes to catch my breath, unable to move. Blame myself for not using the elevator.
Saturday: I walk up to the 2nd floor and run out of breath. Spend most of the day laying down on the couch while my son is playing around me.
Sunday: I feel better, we go out, at night I go out to tango. Have to dance one tanda - sit out two, but it kind of works.
Monday: Day -1, I have to go do a blood test. Come back, spend the rest of the day on the couch with a laptop.
And here the fun begins!
Monday night: my oncologist calls me - the test shows hematocrit dropped so much it indicates about a liter of blood lost. I realize the black stuff on Wednesday might not have been soup. She tells me to get to the ER immediately, which I do, munching on a banana on the way.
The ER folks are wonderful - within minutes of admittance I'm propped up, the port is accessed, another IV site is created, the tests are done and they start the blood transfusion. Two bags and they let me sleep.
Tuesday: Somebody tells me GI will probably want to do a colonoscopy and will probably want me to drink the gut-cleansing prep. In the meanwhile, I'm not to eat anything, sustaining on just an IV bag of dextrose solution.
Tuesday late afternoon: finally a GI doc shows up, says he'll do a scope tomorrow. No prep to drink, since I'm pretty clean as it is. Clear liquids only, nothing by mouth after midnight.
Wednesday - no food, no water. That Monday banana now seems pretty good. Finally, around 3PM they finally bring me to GI area. Colonoscopy finds nothing in the large intestine. Finally, I can eat! By the end of the night hematocrit drops again. Another transfusion.
Thursday - wasting my time in the hospital, finally the docs come with a new plan. They will do another test, coming from the mouth through the stomach into the small intestine. If they find the source of the bleeding, the radiologist can burn it shut with his magic rays. I realize that either with the bleeding or with the radiation treatment I am not going to go on the clinical trial. The test is scheduled for Friday, nothing by mouth after midnight again.
Friday - Fasting most of the day, finally a test. I ask the GI doc why didn't he do this test on Wednesday right after the unresultful colonoscopy. Well, he shrugs, we didn't think of it right away. Of course, the test reveals nothing.
Saturday - I'm finally out of hospital. Kicked out of the clinical trial, still with a potential to bleed, not knowing what will happen next.
TL;DR version:
- Carpe diem
- ER folks are heroes
- GI docs - not so much
- ABP soups suck!
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