Monday, August 13, 2012

This morning when I woke up, I went to change Collin's diaper, and found out it had leaked, so I had to get him and the bed cleaned up and changed. In the process, his IV line got caught somewhere (I think in the siderail) and pulled out of his port. So the line had to be taken out, his chest had to be numbed, and his port had to be reaccessed with a new line. I felt horrible, because it caused Collin enough pain that he was screaming. Thankfully as soon as the line was taken all the way out, he felt a lot better, and he didn't even cry when I re-numbed the area and the new line was put in.

Since Collin was still inpatient this morning, arrangements were made for an ambulance transport over to the Proton Center for his radiation treatment. I told Collin it would be an adventure, and he was quite excited. He eagerly rode on the stretcher, and seemed to enjoy the whole experience. Of course once we got to the Proton Center, he couldn't get to the playroom fast enough! After his radiation, he woke up in a good mood, and was very happy to return to the playroom to wait for the ambulance to take us back to the hospital. He was still a bit loopy from the anesthesia, and was so funny on the ride back! The ambulance crews were great with Collin, and seemed to get a kick out of him.

Collin enjoying his ride on the stretcher to the ambulance

The ambulance that transported Collin between the hospital & proton center

Collin in the ambulance

Loopy Collin chillin in the ambulance after radiation

When we got back to the hospital, we learned that his cultures were still negative, which meant we could go home. Collin's blood counts are also high enough that I can stop giving him the G-CSF shots! I ordered a late lunch for us (at 2:30) before we left, since neither of us had eaten yet (MD Anderson has room service for all meals, so you pick what you want from their menu, call it in, and they bring it to the room. They will bring orders for the patient and guests, so it's great because I don't have to leave Collin by himself to get myself something to eat). The ride home was quite...an adventure.

We were coming home during rush hour, so there was quite a lot of traffic and it was moving pretty slowly. In the lane next to me, there was a guy riding a sporty motorcycle, going a bit faster than he should have, weaving his bike back and forth in his lane, just being careless (in my humble opinion). All of a sudden, he had to brake hard to avoid running into the car in front of him, his back tire slid out from under him, and he and his bike wiped out, right there near the front of me. Thankfully traffic was going slow enough that we could easily stop without hitting him! He got right up, I stopped next to him, and rolled down my window to ask if he was ok. He said he was, and got his bike off to the side of the road. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt (so I'm sure he had a nasty case of road rash), and no helmet. I hope he realizes how lucky he was today, because if traffic was going any faster, I or the car to my right would have hit him after he fell. Then, a little while later as I neared the exit I needed, I noticed quite a lot of smoke up ahead. As I got closer, I could tell it was coming from the road, and figured it was a car fire. As it turned out, the grass between the highway and my exit lane was on fire, so when I stopped at the traffic light, I called 911. Luckily, they already knew about it and had a fire truck on it's way. Thankfully it wasn't a burning car and no one was hurt!