It's not just been one thing, but a whole array of little things that have just driven me to tears.
Start with the fact that I woke up around 2am having nightmares. It is amazing how many of your deepest darkest fears can creep into your dreams as soon as you relax. Naturally, after that happened I found it incredibly difficult to sleep and spent the rest of the time watching daylight sneaking in around the curtains.
With morning came one disaster after another.
First her catheter stopped draining. Oncologists were called in to make a determination as to whether they would just remove it or whether she was still close enough post chemo that they would have to insert another one.
They decided to leave it out, thankfully!
Then we discovered that she was oozing blood from around her button, and the surgeons were called in to assess it. It was then turned back to the oncologists as a likely ulceration of her stomach lining caused by the chemo.
Give her more medication and wait it out.
After lots of fussing and trouble they finally managed to get bloods to do a blood count, only to find out that her hemoglobin levels had completely tanked and she needed a packed cell transfusion.
(huge, huge, MASSIVE thanks to all of you that donate blood!)
Now we have another problem... she has one port, currently in use for pain relief (morphine and ketamine) and saline. Narcotic drugs are incompatible with blood products. They can't stop the pain relief because her pain has escalated significantly in the last 24 hours.
Solution?
Insert another peripheral line.
Into the treatment room we go, much to Nicola's absolute disgust! Four attempts later they finally managed to get a line in that worked to both bleed back and flush. Back to the room and they set up her transfusion.
She has been trying to take a nap since 10am this morning only the other family we are room sharing with are loud, noisy, obnoxious and completely inconsiderate! Every time we finally get her settled they start shouting and yelling and carrying on... or, in the odd instance the rest of the family happens to disappear, the mother will run off and hide downstairs to have a dozen smokes (uh, hello?! your child has CANCER and you're smoking?!?!), and leaving her child in the bed crying anxiously for her to return!
They have increased the dose of lasix they are pushing through to try and get her to drop the 3kg of fluid she has retained in the last week, so she is weeing out a small river, to the point that we are just about changing the sheets with every nappy and nappies are getting changed every 30 minutes or so...
She is still having massive problems with her bowels post surgery, and today has seen a pronounced increase in her pain issues. They think that perhaps the chemo is causing the primary tumor in her pelvis to become inflamed and swollen before it starts to die off.
The final insult to a very long line of injuries?
Someone stole our stuff from the fridge in the parents lounge. They stole my coke, but more importantly, they stole Nicola's apple juice and chocolate custard.
After promising her through the entire peripheral line insertion I promised her that as soon as we got back to her room I would give her a chocolate custard, and then I had to break that promise because some lowlife scum took food from a sick child!!!
Yes, I am just a little bit angry about that!!
So all in all, it has just been a completely and utterly crap day.
The only thing I hope is that tomorrow, being a fully staffed Monday, will bring a better day!
I miss my beautiful baby girl's cheeky smile!!!
:'(
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