Shear Joy

I woke the next morning with sun barely reaching the beach though a heavy, cloud cover.  I was struggling to sit up realizing that I had tangled the IV line, the phone cord and my lamp cord.  After freeing myself I surveyed my predicament. I was hooked up to an 18 hour drip of Rituximab.  Rituxan, the brand name, is used to treat blood problems, leukemia, lymphoma, rheumatoid arthritis, GVHD [graft-versus-host-disease????] Wegener’s granulomatosis and microscopic polyangitis.  It harms these cells causing their death; it is always shot into the vein over a period of time.  It is only given in a well supervised and observed hospital situation. 

I was given lunch and dinner the night before and they were underwhelming. The morning of day two at about 6AM a nurse came in and took blood in two vials.  At about 7 I had breakfast of frittata, potatoes, grits, and fresh fruit cup.  Every meal had a whole wheat roll, coffee, 1% milk and condimenti.  Another worker came in for my vitals [blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen and pulse].  Another came for a nose swab.  Another came to weigh me.  Another came to check if I had urinated and/or had a bowel movement.  The little chaplain visited again and left disappointed.  Then the doctors stated marching through.  The Attending Physician for this stay was none other than the legendary Dr. Lawrence Tierney [really, look him up; he’s big stuff!].  The most regular visits were from Isabel Edge [no lie!] a fourth year UCSF Med. Student [Don’t you love it… soon she will be Dr. Edge!] and Sahael Stapleton, MD who is in residence at the VA.  There were three or four different nurses every 24 hours and each had a nurse’s assistant.  Sam came to clean the room daily [I would take my tree and wander the halls while he tidied].   Nutritionists, social workers, the donut guy, and others kept me awake during the day.

After the Rituxan was through I was given 5 20mg tablets of Prednisone and one 300mg tablet of Allopurinol. I got stabbed in the belly with Fragmin.  Fragmin reduces the possibility of pulmonary embolism.  Allopurinol reduces production of uric acid which can cause gout.  Prednisone is important in the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphomas [which I got] when used in conjunction with the anti-cancer drugs. 

There was nothing on my TV so I got back to my wicked book “Against Nature” by Joris-Karl Huysmans.  Shear Joy!