Yesterday in the clinic when Eric was asked about his Christmas, he said it was amazing, I was sure relieved (and surprised) to hear that because it has definitely not been amazing.
There have been amazing moments, but also really hard moments. Eric's headaches have been increasing and the pain is intolerable. The pain meds work, but the headaches come on so suddenly that they usually get worse before the meds kick in. Eric has a pretty high pain tolerance and these are leaving him screaming.
We managed through Christmas and Boxing Day and the weekend and Eric had an appointment scheduled at clinic for Monday the 29th. He'd been ok in the morning, but the second he got in the car, the headache hit. He said he wanted to get admitted so they could make him better. Eric's Oncologist is on vacation this week. They take turns over Christmas so half his team was off last week and half this week. When we arrived they asked immediately about his headaches and made Eric happy by suggesting that we admit in order to investigate. He had his regular platelets, plus blood as his hemoglobin was quite low, which on its own can cause headaches. Then he also had a head CT, which looked normal. We got a room on the inpatient side (with a fold down couch/bed - yay!) and Chuck brought us in some necessities, like my mattress topper. They had an LP (lumbar puncture) planned for Tuesday morning so Eric would have to fast because it is a sedated procedure. He chose a cucumber roll and spring rolls for dinner before fasting. His head was hurting a little, but we gave him a boatload of melatonin and knocked him out for the night. Unfortunately, due to the headaches, the doctors ordered neuro checks with his vitals every 4 hours overnight, which includes shining a light in his eyes.
Tuesday morning, Eric's nurse said he would go into procedure about 11am. He was last due to the cold (which I forgot to mention; we all caught Joel's cold over the weekend.) Luckily they actually came to get him about 10:30am before he'd even had time to get hangry. The LP went fine, but Eric did not wake up well from the sedation. That was the first time in a couple of years that he has woken up so upset and angry and I was not prepared for it.
In the afternoon, we were hunkered down for the long haul when a doctor came in and said the preliminary results of the LP looked good (no leukemia blasts seen in the spinal fluid) and she was just waiting for the official results and then would discharge us. WHAT?!?! That came out of nowhere. She said since Eric isn't having any headaches today and since his CT and LP were both fine, we were good to go home and check back in at clinic on Friday. She did add that when they did the LP his pressure was a bit high so that could be what is causing the headaches, but it should be relieved a bit with the LP and we can follow up with our team Friday. She came back about an hour later with discharge papers. The bad news was I didn't have my car since my mom had driven it home after we were admitted! I packed up our stuff and Chuck came and got us. We got home about 7pm and, aside from being exhausted, Eric is feeling great and we're happy to be home earlier than expected.
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