That's right, gentle readers, #hospitalfree2020 didn't even last four weeks.
TL;DR: Vic got pneumonia, spent four days in the hospital. Biopsy results are partially in: it
isn't multiple myeloma or a few other things, but not sure what it
is. Vic fell down the stairs unharmed.
Here's how the first four weeks of our year have gone:
I got a cold. It was that nasty cold that's going around that made me feel crappy for more than a week and gave me a cough that is still annoying me. I only work in the office twice a week, and I don't think I went to the office for the first time this year until the 16th.
Vic got a cold. Probably mine—after all, when you live in the same house as a sickie, you often get sick yourself. This cold made him feel crappy and gave him a nasty cough.
On the 6th, we saw the oncologist about the bone marrow biopsy. Basically, Vic has a plasma cell population that is causing the oncologist concern, because plasma cells can become cancerous. The good news from this visit was that Vic does
not have multiple myeloma. Although it is treatable, it's still not something you want to have. It could be a lymphoma, but more testing is needed. The oncologist wanted us to taper down the prednisone Vic was taking for his pesky platelet problem and scheduled another appointment in three weeks.
On the 17th, Vic came in to my home office. As he was talking to me, I noticed that he had something on his lower front tooth, like when you eat a salad and you have a bit of lettuce covering your tooth. Except it was 10 a.m., and he hadn't had anything to eat yet that day. When he pulled down his lip, I noticed that his tooth was gone. Just gone. Snapped off at the base. Still don't know where it went. Fortunately, we were able to get an appointment with his dentist right away. Interestingly, the dentist made him a new tooth. Just made him a tooth. You can hardly even tell that it's a new tooth! (Special thanks to Dr. Bob Ahern, who treats Vic like family.)
Back to Vic's cold. When Vic gets sick, he tends to miss meals and drink fewer fluids. This makes him weak and dehydrated, and he gets sicker. His body hates him (that's the only reason I can think of for his body treating him so badly after a lifetime of more or less healthy living [I'll ignore the years he was overweight because people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones]), so getting sicker often means pneumonia.
One of the signs of pneumonia is pleurisy. "What is pleurisy," you ask? Well, your lungs are surrounded by pleura, which cushion the lungs and reduce friction between the lungs, ribs and chest. When the pleura get inflamed, you can feel it in your back. Here's a handy graphic for those of you who wish you knew more:
So as Vic got sicker, his back started hurting, and we both know now that this is a sign to get to the doctor, which we did, on the 23rd. The doctor prescribed strong antibiotics and a chest X-ray, so we toddled on over to the hospital for the X-ray and then toddled on over to the pharmacy for the antibiotics. The doctor called back and said the X-ray didn't show any signs of pneumonia, so that was good—or so we thought.
Vic spent most of the next few days sleeping. I gave him tube food every time he got up and tried to keep him hydrated, but it's just an uphill battle for both of us.
On the 27th, we went to the oncologist for those bone marrow biopsy results. In addition to his abormal white blood cells not being multiple myeloma, they're also not lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma and they're not waldenstrom macroglobulinemia (another kind of lymphoma). He said (I'm paraphrasing), "We could do a lymph node biopsy because you may have a low-grade lymphoma, but since it doesn't seem to be causing you trouble, we're not going to worry about that right now. Instead, I'd like to focus on this thing you got going on right now." He could see that Vic was not feeling well at all. In addition to Vic just looking awful, his vital signs were also awful: low blood pressure, low oxygen level, low-grade fever—all the lows. He suggested a chest CT scan, and he suggested a hospital admission, and that's how #hospitalfree2020 came to an end.
He spent four days in the hospital getting antibiotics, fluids and a constant stream of tube food as well as some visitors:
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| Visitors like this are always the highlight of Vic's hospital stays. |
On the second day, he walked six laps around the ward, but that really set him back. He was super tired that night and all the next day, although that night, we did take a walk to the aquarium, another highlight of a hospital stay:
Thursday, we had a different set of visitors:
I thought they visited because there is a pediatric wing on the fifth floor, but they said no, they visit all the floors. They told some really bad jokes, but they were super into being clowns, and they made us both smile.
The pulmonologist said he thought Vic should stay another day (to Friday) to get more of the high-test antibiotics, but by the end of the day, he apparently changed his mind because our GP came over and said he could go home if he wanted. If I'd been there (I had actually just left to go home to walk Bella), I'd have emphatically said I did
not think he should go home yet—he was still pretty weak and it seemed like one more day of fluids, antibiotics and tube food would have been helpful—but I wasn't, so discharged he was. I picked him up and we went home, and he was very happy.
The next morning felt like the night before Christmas: Out in the hall there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but—and here's where we digress from the poem—my husband sprawled motionless at the bottom of the stairs! I flew down the stairs, where I was greeted with a perfectly clear, perfectly calm, "I'm OK." So of course, I instantly burst into tears. (My go-to response to stress, anger and commercials featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales.) He didn't feel like anything was injured—and I didn't see any blood from open wounds—but we still made haste to the doctor's office.
The nurse practitioner made a concussion assessment (verdict: not a concussion), did a check of his head and neck and spine, and asked him where it hurt (his hand was the only thing that was painful). She prescribed a muscle relaxant and some nice Vicodin, saying, "You're gonna need these tomorrow," and ordered an X-ray for his hand (verdict: nothing broken there). She said he could get a head CT and asked whether he wanted one.
I immediately recounted how Derek Shepherd died because he had a subdural hematoma that went undiagnosed because he was at a crappy hospital instead of Grey Sloan and they didn't give him a head CT, and then I said, "So all I'm saying is this—I am Meredith Grey, and Vic is my Derek Shepherd, and I cannot lose him. So if you can assure me that he does not have a subdural hematoma, then I agree we should wait to get the head CT." This made her laugh—which was my intent—but let's face it, I WAS NOT KIDDING. ;-) She then said that if it were her own family member, she would advise them to wait. Since Vic only had a small bump on his head and hadn't actually gotten t-boned like Derek Shepherd, I felt comfortable with that decision. (If you do not watch
Grey's Anatomy, the preceding paragraph will sound like a foreign language to you.)
For those who would like to see his head, here it is:
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| This is probably where he hit one of the posts on the stairs. |
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| This is probably a little rug burn. Thank goodness we keep an area rug at the bottom of the stairs! |
Which brings us to today. He is doing OK from the fall and seems to be recovering from the pneumonia. So maybe I was too aggressive with my hashtag for the year. My new hashtag: #hospitalfreeFebruary3-7. Let's see how that goes.
And finally, what is a blog post without a Bella video? I couldn't decide whether to use the video I took
for him (while he was in the hospital) or the video I took
of him (after he came home), so I'm just using both. I mean, really, if one Bella video is good, aren't two Bella videos better?
Thank you, as always, for your continued thoughts, prayers, good wishes, etc. They are deeply appreciated and meaningful. 💗
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