The Hospital....

If I had to describe the hospital stay I guess I could sum it up by saying that it was a blur and a nightmare.  Those tippy toes that I had been balancing on soon came slamming down like Frankenstein feet and everyone on the fifth floor of Baylor Grapevine Hospital on the Oncology wing knew when I was there.  It wasn't long after Phil's stay began that I had a nickname.  Boss Lady.  That's right Boss Lady and it was given to me by one of the male nurses that didn't act quite fast enough when hubby was in pain.  There's that word again, PAIN.  He was just a little too nonchalant about getting it done and I was not too happy with his attitude and I had to put a little giddy in his up. 

Everyone that knows Phil knows that he is not afraid to ask for what he wants, he walks into a room and everyone knows he is there.  Many times we have gone to a movie that was sold out and once we got our popcorn and coke and entered the theatre the open seats were scattered so Phil would promptly find a row that had two open seats, one at the end of the row and one about 10 seats down and he would ask for every one's attention in that row and proceed to ask everyone to gather their things and move one way or another whichever direction he felt was better for us.  And guess what?  They did it.  Of course I would be hiding over in the wings hoping that he didn't make me crawl over too many people but if I had to, I would apologize all the way down the row.  Phil was not this way under the influence of drugs in the hospital.  He was very docile and easy going, something I wasn't used to seeing so I had to be large and in charge.  I was very protective and extremely sensitive to his pain. 

First trip to radiation

Radiation started immediately and they sent an ambulance with two men to carry him away to the facility just across the street.  I followed.  They would blast an area that measured about 2 inches on his spine.  They were able to get several lesions that way.  This was part of his daily routine for 9 days in a row.  I decided to use that time to stay home and get some things done and try to work but on about the seventh treatment Phil called me crying, yes crying and hardly able to speak!  I could hardly understand him.  He had collapsed in the bathroom and clung to the sink, his spine pretty much giving way and he was in incredible pain.  That day they had sent a woman paramedic to take him in a wheelchair because he had been doing better.  They managed to get him into a wheelchair and he had to wait for them to send a stretcher with two men from the ambulance company.  He was almost passing out from the excruciating pain.  They got him back in bed and we waited for the doctor to come for his rounds that night. 

They have doctors for EVERYTHING!  They send in a doctor for your kidneys, a doctor for your blood work, a doctor for your spine, a doctor for your cancer, a doctor for your urine analysis, a different doctor for every part of your body and they don't step on each others toes.  One doctor came in our room on accident and charged for it!  Unbelievable!  They scheduled what they call a kyphoplasty on Phil's spine and it was to fill it with cement where they felt the cancer had eaten away at the spine.  They calculated that it was compromised about 20%.  Well, they were wrong, it was more like 50% so they couldn't fill it with as much cement as they expected to because it would compromise the good bone marrow that was left and hoped that it would leave enough room for it to grow back healthy and strong.  After surgery he would be fitted with a brace that was totally useless and cost a lot of money and now sits on a pile of stuff in our garage. 

The next 48 hours were probably the worst of the worst and I hope we never ever ever have to experience anything like it again.  I got to the hospital early the next morning after Phil's surgery only to find the nurse that relieved the night time nurse upset and vividly shaken.  She had gone into Phil's room and found him naked and the sheets off the bed and soaked in urine.  He was so out of it and was cold.  She immediately shot into action and got him dressed and sheets and blankets on the bed.  The night nurse was sketchy at best when I left him but I thought that he would be sleeping and I could go home.  I stayed all day and never left his side and was extremely upset with the situation.  He was so drugged up.  They had him on four different types of medication including a patch that was on his arm.  I stormed down to the nurses station and asked the charge nurse to come with me and take patch off immediately because my husband was obviously over dosed.  They had him on Valium, Morphine, Dilaudid and the patch.  When the doctor on call made her rounds that evening she asked me if Phil had a problem with alcohol which may be the problem for his reaction.  What?  Does your nursing staff have a problem with alcohol?  Then she asked me about the anti-depressant.  Thought that may have triggered something.  You've got to be kidding me.  You are put on an anti-depressant because you have been told that you have an incurable disease, I think they would have checked that out with the "Pain Management" Doctor that we were being charged for.  Thank goodness Dr. Davis returned a few days later from his vacation (it seemed like an eternity) and he immediately knew it was an overdose situation.  I guess I should practice medicine!

The same doctor that asked me if Phil had an alcohol problem also looked at me and asked me if I would stay with him that night.  She knew that he needed round the clock monitoring and their staff was not equipped to do that.  I of course said that I would.  He was so out of it and so drugged up that we had to put in a catheter and put him on bed alert.  We didn't want him falling.  I pulled the lounge chair up next to his bed and got a couple of pillows and a blanket and I held his hand through the bars all night long.  About every 20 minutes he would wake up and say one of three things: 1. Where am I?  2. Why am I here?  3. Why did I have surgery?  I would reply:  Honey, you are in the hospital.  Honey, you have cancer (he would say, "I do?").  Honey, you had back surgery today.  He would try to get out of bed and I would have to tell him he couldn't get up, "why?", "because you had surgery today", "why?", "because you have cancer", "I do?".  This went on and on.  It was like ground hogs day.  It stabbed me in the heart every time I had to tell him he had cancer.  He would just say "oh" and lay back down like a little boy.  Then I would feel him moving around and he would be trying to take his clothes off and I would have to tell him to leave his clothes on.  It was a VERY long night.  A VERY long night. 

The worst part of his stay after that was the pain.  He would get to a certain point and it was like he would fall off the edge and into the abyss.  He got so scared of the pain that he didn't think he could come home.  So, it became a 21 day stay.  He was scared to get out of bed because he fell short of the toilet one day and crashed down once again in the bathroom.  I had never seen my big man scared of anything before, ever but pain scared him like the devil himself.  It was evil.  It took time to feel safe, safe enough to come home and I honestly didn't want him to come home until I knew that his pain was managed.  I was just as frightened as he was.  But the day came and the staff all gathered around him and bid him farewell.  They had grown to love him.  Most of the staff was wonderful.  I know I just told you the bad part but for the most part, they were great.  We will never forget them and I'm sorry that some of them weren't there for our parting picture.