Essentially, Tom was high risk for blood clots because of his chemo treatment. They had warned us of all the symptoms to look for, so I’m glad we were smart enough to put it all together and get to the hospital. Due to his pain, Tom lost track of the fact that we came to the hospital a few hours before the Cubs game, to which he said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t mention it, because I probably would have avoided coming”. Apparently he is willing to jeopardize his health for the Cubs. The clots were incredibly painful and now he will require shots every twelve hours – for the next three months. So, starting tonight, I got the low down on administering the shots and will be moonlighting as Nurse Honore moving forward for the shots. Remember our trust exercise with the head shaving? The repeated shots make that trust exercise look like a piece of cake. I had three nurses watching me/teaching me as I (sort of) confidently stabbed him or should I say poked him with the needle. I’ll continue to do the shots while I’m here to make sure I’m all good to go at home. However, for now, I’ve totally got the dramatic doctor/nurse glove snap thing down.
Today was another busy day, but I’m glad to say that we are done with Day 1 of our chemo treatment. He rocked it as per usual. We saw our regular oncologist first thing this morning to prepare for the day and she had great reports from his blood work and we definitely have started to kill this tumor! Unfortunately it didn’t reduce in size greatly (yet), but the blood counts show great progress so that was a great way to start our day after a rough two days here dealing with the clots. As for now, Tom is trying hard to keep his eyes open, despite meds that make him drowsy, to watch the whole Cubs game :) More to come tomorrow…