Move in day

Well, Dad was admitted as an in-patient today and we have moved into the cooperative care unit at the Med Center...at the Lied Transplant Center. For those of you just tuning in, the cooperative care is an alternative to being in a full blown hospital room. It's where someone agrees to be the care giver round the clock (24-7) - that would be me. There are still nurses available whenever you need one, but they just don't have to check up on you as often. To do this, I have been taught how to take his vital signs 4 times a day (blood pressure, temperature, pulse, respiration, blood oxygen) and administer any medications (I get a medicine box every day from the pharmacy...they bring it to me...with instructions for medication for the day). Also, I weigh him daily, make sure his intake is ok...and outake, make sure he rinses his mouth out with a certain medicine 4 times a day, and uses a spirometer 4 times a day (it helps keep his lungs healthy) and I can flush his hickman catheter lines, if I need to. And I get him to all his appointments for the day. In other words, Nurse Ratchet is on duty!

I've been preparing for this moving in day for months - thinking through everything we need - making a 3 page list & checking things off as I gathered them in our spare bedroom at home. I'll admit, there are a lot of things.....there are many things to take besides clothes...entertainment for a good month, snacks, pillows, sheets, etc. Leo says it rivals Dwight Eisenhower's plans for D-Day. In fact, Dad calls my endeavors "Operation Overkill" (you history buffs will get this, the rest of you...look it up!)

Here's us moving in. Leo calls this the first wave (there were 3 "waves"). Thankfully they had a cart for us to use.

Here's the view of our room as you open the door. It's like a decent hotel room...only in a hospital setting. To the left is a small sitting room with a sofa and recliner.

Here's the sofa.

Here's the bedroom part. There's a small table and chairs by the window. We can order our food at any time of the day...it's not like in the hospital where they bring your tray up at a certain time. Because of the varied schedule of chemo and other appointments, it works out really good to just be able to order your food and they bring it up like room service. The food is reallly good here...I had blackened salmon tonight for dinner. It's just so nice not to be cooking every meal!

Here's the little kitchen area with a small fridge and a microwave.

It's nice to keep juice, water, and fresh fruits in the fridge.

And here's the star of the show. His nurse today on the cooperative care floor, was glad to have him. She said that she had heard from the other nurses that had already treated Dad, that Dad was a fun guy. He ate that stuff up!

Everything went very smoothly today, and everyone was so nice here. This Med. Center is very impressive. We met with all sorts of other people today...the pharmacist, other doctors and P.A.s. Then around 2:30 Dad went to the treatment room and got his first dose of chemo. It's a pretty harsh one and he did have a very typical reaction...a bad headache...so he got some pain meds and that took care of it. He ate a good dinner (although he chose to eat lightly so he could sleep well tonight). Tomorrow and the next 3 days are the same routine of chemo: one dose of a different chemo than today...called Ara-C...at 8:00 AM , lasting about 1 hour...then at 9:00 another chemo called VP-16....and then another dose of the same at 6:00 PM, lasting the same time. It's not quite as harsh as the one today.

Oh, I forgot to mention: today is known as day -6 (Tim & Julie, you know about this). Tomorrow is day -5....and so on....with the transplant day being day 0...and the day after that being day 1.

Well, I need to get to bed. Dad is already asleep. I need to set the alarm and give Dad his 6:00 AM medications (a pill to prevent reactions to the chemo). A nurse will be coming into the room around 5:30 to draw some blood from him, which is necessary to have before they proceed with tomorrow's chemo treatment. It's been a long day, but a good one. We are very happy to be here in the Transplant Center...it's so nice to just take the elevator down a few floors to the treatment center and just be right there. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.