Midnight Madness. 2/9/12

Just when I was finally closing my eyes last night, or more precisely this morning, the night nurse came in to check Sarah's port in preparation for her last dose of chemo. She flushed the port and immediately felt there was a problem, not what you want to hear after midnight. Now this was the same nurse that had a problem with the port the last time we were in the hospital. I remarked that it had been fine all day, but she was confident that there was a problem. Needless to say, Sarah was wide awake now, and told the nurse that she seemed to be the only person in the hospital who didn't know how to use a port!! Before we knew it there were three nurses hovering over Sarah, trying to access the problem, commenting that perhaps the needle or port needed to be changed, Sarah freaked out!! At this point I was in the bed with her, trying to calm her down, remain calm myself, and listen to the nurses plan. The plan involved injecting blood thinner into the port, waiting for half an hour, and once again checking for blood return, low and behold it worked! By now it was 2:30am and time to start the chemo, we finally drifted off to sleep sometime after 3am. I was up before 7, but thankfully Sarah slept until after 8, she was awakened by the smell of her breakfast arriving, French toast again, the steroids make her ravenous. In discussing the evenings events with the day nurse, nurse B, (one of our favorites), she explained that what had happened was very common and not a big deal. Sometimes the little flap in the port gets clogged, and a little blood thinner clears it right up! That simple explanation sure would have come in handy earlier, it would have eased our nerves considerably. I made a point of discussing the experience with both the patient advocate and the nurse educator, it was unfair that a professionals uneasiness with a procedure led to a patient being so upset. They were wonderful, and promised it would not happen again. The day improved quickly when the art therapist arrived, Sarah really enjoys working with her, it is very relaxing. What an amazing program, I hope they get the funding needed to extend the grant for this great program. After lunch we could hear Dr. M talking in the hallway, we warned him that we only wanted good news, and surprise we got it, he was coming to tell us that Sarah could go home!!!!!
So, here we are, home sweet home; we checked on the progress being made in Sarah's room, not done but we love it so far, showered, ate, and now are settling down for what we hope will be a great nights sleep. Being home is the best medicine we could have asked for! Tomorrow the shots start, but for now sleep is the only thing we are thinking about.
Good night all,
M