IC Day 18 & 19 Update

Did we think that we were going to get more rest when we got home?? As you can see, I'm doing two updates in one today simply because I couldn't get to it yesterday and this is my first real chance today. For only having to give him his medicine every 6 hours it sure takes up a lot of the day. In addition to taking his medicine out of the fridge a half hour before we also have to spend quite a few minutes getting all the air bubbles out of his line. It takes us 15 or more minutes to hook Nathan up between the cleaning and the priming and the cleaning and the flushing and the cleaning and the connecting. Once we have Nathan hooked up, it takes us a few more minutes to get the drip rate going correctly. You then have to check the drip rate a few times during the hour to make sure it doesn't get too fast or too slow. Typically it has taken us over the hour to get the full bag in, and that is because it is darn hard to get exactly 26 drops per minute - and even when we've got that real close, I think it takes longer than the hour. Also, they told us that going over the hour is acceptable but we really don't want to do it in less than one hour. After nine hookups and disconnections we are getting fairly proficient at it, only 15 more to go... and no, I don't want to be a nurse. Shelley and I haven't quite figured out how to get enough sleep but I'm sure we'll get back to it. So far we've been doing most of the IV setups together but we may have to split that up more now that we are both getting more comfortable with it. All, in all this is still better than being in the hospital because our family is together.

Nathan has had a couple of interesting days. He has had more spells of not feeling good than he did in the hospital but he's not really sure what's wrong. When you ask what hurts, he states that he just doesn't feel well. Yesterday at suppertime Nathan wasn't feeling well at the table and he ended up throwing up just as supper was done. That was a little bit of a surprise but he seemed to rebound well afterwards. In the hospital he was getting an anti-nausea drug called Ondansetron that he hasn't had since we've been home. We may have to give him some more of that but it was just supposed to be for a couple days after his chemo. Today was a better day than yesterday - his demeanour, eating, play time and he even agreed to a bath. We definitely know there will be ups and downs in this process and are grateful for the days that are good.