Checking in - 171.4

It's been a bit of a crazy week. I was able to visit my adorable great niece on Thursday and had fun seeing my sister and the baby's parents, too! Nora is an incredibly beautiful and sweet little baby!

Got home late that night and instead of being sensible and going straight to bed, stayed up even later playing with photos. Then very early in the morning, my son wakes me up with "I'm coughing up blood." Not good! It's been 3 1/2 years since we had a trip to the ER with that heart-stopping issue and I could have gone another 3 or so years without another! It slowed by the time we got across town to the military hospital where the CF team is who cares for him. They did an xray pretty quickly, then a CT with contrast. The CT showed some enlarged blood vessels near the airways and "broken glass" looking areas where there could have been other small bleeds, but no active bleeding artery, so that was good news, but they wanted to admit him to keep an eye on him overnight and make sure he didn't cough up more. It was a reasonable path, but Kendall made them promise to discharge him so he wouldn't be in the hospital over Christmas and they said "OK, as long as there is no more bleeding!" He agreed. We know how dangerous the lung bleeds are with CF, they are our least favorite thing!

Unfortunately, they don't have chair/beds where I can spend the night (which really annoys us because when we initially came to the clinic they assured us I would be able to stay with him during hospitalizations) so we stayed with him until about 9 last night. This morning we got there to discover he had a bad nosebleed that didn't seem to want to stop. He said he was sure it was because he hadn't done his two nasal rinses the night before, which he hasn't missed in ages, plus they didn't put a humidifier on the oxygen he needs at night. So with the dry hospital air, double whammy! Good thing he quickly told us he had a nosebleed, because if I would have seen the bloody tissues in the garbage before he told us it was from his nose, I probably would have had a bit of a panic attack. (Not really. I tend to remain calm in the midst of the crisis. It's when I'm alone and away from my son that I have my breakdown!) The doctors were a little reluctant on the discharge until they were sure the nosebleed was stopped. I was OK with that, it kind of concerned me, too, that it was taking so long to stop. We will definitely remember that for future reference if he needs to be hospitalized again. Well, guess we should say WHEN, it's pretty inevitable with him.

There was also some confusion about his mediport needle because he is always on IV meds at home, so he was already accessed when we went to the ER (that means he had a needle in the port, ready for IV meds) and the nurse doing the discharge thought that they had accessed him so that legally they had to take the needle out before we went home. All three of us kind of yelled at her when she said that. :-) The confusion was understandable since I'm sure they never have patients who are continually accessed. But Kendall has been on IV meds at home for 11 years now and I change his needle out every week. Most patients with a mediport have cancer and will only get accessed at the hospital or clinic when they go there for chemo. So whenever we go to the ER, they are always shocked when we tell them he is already accessed. The ER nurse was shocked at how calm Kendall was after coughing up a few ounces of blood. "Yeah, I have coughed up a LOT more than this before." Ah, that explains it! Yeah, we aren't your average ER patient! ;-)

Anyway, that was enough excitement for the month. You hear me, God? Let's be boring for the rest of the year, how 'bout it? Pretty please? Thanks!

Oh, I almost forgot the big thing I wanted to share. When I was getting ready to leave my nephew's house, my sister mentioned I was looking a little "gaunt." I sighed. Yeah, that seems to be the consensus. My nephew said he noticed my skinny jeans. I said "I'll take that!" :-) I told my daughter about it and she said, "Mom, the other day you walked in the room and really scared the $%@# out of me. You looked like a 70yo woman and I told Dad, you need to figure out what's wrong with Mom and FIX IT!" I laughed and said "WOW! 70! I don't think it's THAT bad!" She said it wasn't funny. When I got home so late from Austin and went in to tell hubby I was home (he was sleeping) he jumped, it scared him. I thought, well, no wonder! A gaunt, 70yo wilted flower, he probably thought it was the Grim Reaper come to take him! LOL It's KIND of funny! And I AM working on making myself eat and have gained a bit, so I'm getting there. I think I'm PMSing, too. :-D