this week blows...

Yesterday, on our way in the house after Katie got her neulasta shot, she had a major dizzy spell. This had happened the day before but we assumed it was because she was only one full day out of chemo and her body was not too happy about her walking around. So we got inside and she sat down on the steps in the entryway to the apartment (we live on the 3rd floor)...She leaned her head back because her head felt "too heavy to hold up" and then, I heard "wow, I'm really diz..." and when I turned around to see why she stopped talking, I saw that she was hainvg a seizure. She wasn't thrashing or anything, but her arms were straight at her sides, her head was back, her eyes were rolled back in her head and twitching, her whole body was trembling and she was completely unresponsive. I grabbed my cell, called 911 while running down the hall to bang on the door of the one neighbor in the building we know...who wasn't home, but still. By the time 911 picked up, Katie was coming out of it...maybe 30 seconds total. As I was giving our address and info to the dispatcher, Katie sat up, her eyes were shooting back and forth and she was moving her mouth like she was trying to speak but couldn't...apparently, she was lucid at this point but was not aware she wan't making any noise. She then came out of it totally and started asking me what was going on and who was I talking to, etc. Within 5 minutes she felt completely fine, if a bit tired. Fine enough to, when I ran upstairs to grab her meds and records, make a call to her oncologist to let him know what had happened. I just about smacked her when I came down stairs and she was sitting there talking on the phone...her response to my "whatthehellareyoudoingonthephoneyoujusthadaseizure!?!" was "well, its on speakerphone..." Have I ever mentioned she's a brat?

So off to the hospital with two awesome EMTs, one of which was amazingly good at inserting an IV, as Katie's a very hard stick and he got it on the first try, in her hand, without it hurting. They couldn't take us to University, where she is being treated, because, being a holiday weekend, their ER was closed...well, they could have taken her there, since her doctor is there, but we would have waited even longer than we did at Crouse, the hospital up the hill from University. Several hours in the ER there, a perfectly normal head CAT scan, an extremely painful and not so effective accessing of her port in order to get blood, a blown vein in her arm that still resulted in not enough blood (did I mention she's a hard stick?) and then another vaguely successful attempt from the port, several hours of waiting, only to find out that they had to admit her.

So she was in the hospital last night for tests (above mentioned CAT scan and head x-ray), all day today with only the MRI and now she has to spend another night because there was no one on today to do a EEG to check her brain waves. All other tests, including the blood tests came back normal. But in order to go home tonight, she would have had to sign out AMA and she wouldn't have been able to get the EEG for about a week.

The doctor there (her oncologist was off yesterday and today for the holiday) seems very eager to put her on anti-seizure meds. Both of us feel that this is not what should happen right now, not unless the EEG tomorrow shows something funky. She recieved 5 days of chemo, along with all the accompanying antinausea and indigestion meds, plus procrit and her regulr pain meds, was home for 24 hours, decided she felt "just fine" and was up to going into the oncology center to get her neulasta, 20 minutes after which she had a seizure. She was also dehydrated as too much fluids makes her nauseous and hadn't had anything to eat since 10 that morning (the seizure was at 1:30-ish) and it was 90 degrees and super-humid out. My assumption, which seems to match the doctor's, is that her body was overstressed from the chemo and meds, dehydrated, undernouished and overtired...add an additional shot of chemical blood-stimulant to that and, her body just said, no way, I quit. If this happens again we'll talk about antiseizure meds, but until then, why add more chemicals to her body which she may not need?

But anyway, that was the scariest thing ever...I never thought she'd manage to top the moment when she told me her diagnosis, but yeah, yeah, this beat that out by far. Thank god she was sitting down and that I was right there. But she's ok...not happy about being in the hospital again so soon after the chemo, and still a bit weak, but ok. The doctor said they'd be able to release her by noon tomorrow. She is under orders to stay in bed as much as possible for the next few days and no driving for at least 2 weeks or until they can make sure this was a one time thing. I don't think I'm going to allow her out of the house for more than 5 minutes, and definatly not out of my sight.

In other news, still no call from below-mentioned psycho. Good to know she is able to live up to her reputation of not even being able to pretend to be a decent person and call her supposed friend when she find out she has cancer. I know, I can't have it both ways, but still, its fun to be able to hate her no matter what she does. Sometimes life needs a villian and cancer is just a bit too vague to direct the same type of anger towards.