Day Zero Plus Twenty-three – Tomorrow! I Love You, Tomorrow!

Nurse Laura was on duty today.  She usually works nights so we thought she was unfamiliar with the morning routine when she asked Jeff if he wanted to unplug from the IV for his shower.  He reminded her that he can’t disconnect – too much risk of infection.  She said I can unplug you long enough to shower.  Jeff and I were both confused.  Jeff said, “Well, I haven’t been allowed to before.”  Laura said, “That’s because you were on IV Tacrolimus but now that you’ve switched to a pill, I can disconnect you.”   Whoa!  Liberation!  I told her she was our favorite nurse so far!  She laughed and added that she would leave it off for a couple of hours so Jeff could walk the halls without the pole.   

He did just that.  We held hands like we were on a date.  We strolled this way and then we strolled the other way.  We passed the same staff members over and over and over again.  Nurses congratulated him on his engraftment and recontamination.  He walked for about 15 minutes.  When we returned to the room he was tired.

Jeff’s ANC was 720 today, up from 530 yesterday.  Pretty good.  His other counts were a little bit higher than yesterday.  Because of the Tacrolimus, his potassium and magnesium will tend to be depleted so he may have to get IV magnesium at home.  Still, it looks good for discharge tomorrow!

Yesterday, I forgot to complete Jeff’s menu for today.  Jeff said he tried to do it; it mostly involves circling choices and a little bit of writing.  He had a lot of trouble doing it.  Nurse Laura brought the issue up with the doctors again because she thought it seemed like neuropathy.  There was a new team of residents today.  Several of them seemed fascinated by Jeff’s description of his numbness and pain.  Dr. Ahmedi still shrugged it off.  I hope he and Dr. Porter are right about it going away over time.  Later, I made sure Jeff could use point/touch to get Netflix shows on the iPad because he can’t play games.  He likes to watch YouTube videos on all sorts of subjects that interest him - another activity that requires very little typing and does not require holding the iPad. 

I called Pop to wish him a Happy Father’s Day.  We swapped hospital stories and compared nursing care.  Clearly Jeff is getting better care than Pop.  We have no complaints in that area!  Pop says he wouldn’t mind being in the hospital so much if he just had some good nurses.  Poor Pop…    

Nancy and Ken came in the afternoon.  Nancy filled me in on Pop’s condition (not great) and then I left Jeff with his visitors so I could go home early and bathe Giblet, finish allo-cleaning the entry and make our bed.  Happy preparations for Jeff’s return home!