Hello from beautiful Sakinaw Lake and thanks to D&R for their hospitality! I am currently sitting here with a tea in hand overlooking the lake and I never want to leave. That's ok, right D&R? Unfortunately, there are a few doses of reality sprinkled here and there, but for the most part, we're all enjoying our family vacation.
On Friday we took the ferry over to Granny's place in Halfmoon Bay where she spoiled us rotten with love, Scott's famous bacon and ice cream bars. Millie fetched sticks in the ocean and Eric fished for Shiners off the dock. He caught Thomas and Abby and Chuck caught Gregory. Apparently we name the tiny catch and release fish for the brief period they spend in the bucket.
Reality Check #1: on Sunday night Eric had a really bad bleeding nose. His platelets are always low and his nose bleeds frequently, but just a little. This was not just a little. It was a lot, and while he was getting some clots, they kept coming out and were not sufficient to stop the bleed. The fact that he was clotting means he did have some platelets. However, since our next scheduled appt wasn't until Wednesday I was dismayed by all the platelets he was using up to not even stop the nose bleed. I wanted to put them back! With some Tranexamic Acid orally and right up the nose, and pinching and an ice pack to the back of the neck, we did eventually get it to stop.
On Monday, we packed up and headed to D&R's on Sakinaw Lake. It was a quick trip and once we unloaded, we had plenty of time to play in the lake. On Tuesday we had such a great day: tubing (when can we go tubing? how much longer? what time is it now? is it time for tubing?) playing in the water, tubing some more, playing board and card games, eating some delicious local corn and playing Telestrations (when can we play Telestrations? are you done cleaning up yet? can we play now? how much longer?)
Reality Check #2: Eric and I woke up early on Wednesday morning to drive to Sechelt. From there we took a seaplane to Nanaimo. In Nanaimo we deplaned, went up to the departure lounge and waited for our plane to be called. There's no longer a direct flight from Sechelt to downtown, so we had about a 20 min stopover in Nanaimo. It was a beautiful day and a smooth flight, if you don't count the vomiting and weeping (2 separate people, not us) on the first flight. We landed in Vancouver Harbour and took a taxi from the taxi stand across the street up to the hospital, which was less than 20 min. We arrived at the hospital right on time for our 11am appointment, both of us thinking that at that point, we should already be done for the day! We headed upstairs, Eric's port was accessed and his nurse called for the platelets right away. I'm dreaming that we're going to be done early and have a couple hours to kill so we can sit at Cactus Club right above Harbour Air with a drink and a snack. Clearly it was a mistake even thinking such a thing. Shortly after the platelets had started, we learned that Eric's hemoglobin was 81. He typically gets symptomatic around 80, but a red blood cell transfusion takes awhile and we had a flight to catch and no options for a later flight. Eric's Nurse Practitioner called Transfusion Medicine to find out how fast we could get the blood upstairs. She figured if they could do it inside 20 minutes, then it was worthwhile, so that is where we started. Luckily they said they could get it up in just 10 or so. So the NP said get as much in as we can before we have to leave. She called it a "gas station top up." The nurse ran it a bit faster than typical and he got most of the bag in before we had to go. We speed walked to the taxi stand at the hospital and got to the Harbour Air check in line ONE MINUTE before the cut off, which is only 20 min before the flight. We had a smooth flight back, with a stop over in Nanaimo. Eric slept through most of both flights; though I did wake him up to see the whale that we flew over. Back at the Sechelt Harbour we saw a seal who waved at us underwater and a couple massive jellyfish. In addition to all the aquatic wildlife, we saw a bear on the way back as well.
Reality Check #3: Eric's platelets were <5, which is the lowest they measure and his hemoglobin dropped 30 points in only 5 days. Eric's Oncologist is away this week, so we saw his Nurse Practitioner and a Fellow. As of the appointment, Eric was 5 days out from the end of the IV Chemo and 10 days into the oral treatment. These both have an impact on his blood counts, and that big nose bleed could explain the rest. However, the Fellow was concerned enough he wondered about stopping Eric's oral treatment. He was going to go talk to the rest of the team and let us know. Eric's NP did email to let us know the team discussed and thought we should pause the meds. Of course, I didn't read the email until after Eric had already had his Wednesday dose. I spoke with his NP over the phone in the morning and felt better after having a discussion with her and learning that it was a pause and not a stop. Their thinking was that it would allow us to have a better vacation while we're a bit remote. She also said they pause treatment all the time for a variety of reasons, but we've never really had that before.
Thursday and Friday, back to vacation as scheduled. However, Friday afternoon was Reality Check #4 when Eric got another bad bleeding nose. We're used to him having lots of little bleeding noses, but he's only had a few of these big ones. It's a bit scary not knowing if we'll be able to stop it or not. Luckily, we were able to stop it, but of course Eric has now lost more blood and more platelets. He's not going to like it, but I think he's going to have to take it easy on the tube for the last couple of days of our vacation.
We head home on Monday and back to the hospital on Tuesday. Fingers crossed for no more reality checks to interrupt our vacation.
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