A LONG JOURNEY BACK PART 1

This blog was created back in 2007 and was used to share thoughts, ideas and life.
It sort of got lost in all the art projects I am involved in. I have missed posting about life and believe me it has been hard this past year. Having a journal to write down my concerns and frustrations would have been a good thing for me so I am going to use this blog as my journal.

I think the last post I did as a journal was a few years back when my husband had shingles and it went to his brain causing encephalitis which caused a coma and 10 days in the hospital in Portland 4 hours away from home. It also caused a near fatal accident when the medication he was taking caused him to fall asleep at the wheel.

My husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer in April of 2017 and could have had chemo and radiation but because he has stage 3 renal failure (another chapter I didn't post) the risk was too grave so he had his bladder removed on June 7th 2017. 

The surgery went well but they didn't get all the cancer. He still has some in the ureter and the skin is too thin to do radiation so he is on Immuno therapy infusion. The drug is known and Ketruda and the side affects are a mile long but the good news is that when we saw the infusion tech she said that they had no report of any of the listed side affects in seven years. Good news, we don't need any more bad news.

All of this called for me to step up as his Care Giver. I had no idea what this would entail but I soon found out.

Two weeks after his bladder was removed he came down with an infection in his left kidney and had a high fever. When he has a fever he becomes dehydrated and with this comes confusion and hallucinations. When this happens it is a sure thing that he has an infection somewhere in his body.

In the middle of the night I found him standing in the middle of our bedroom confused and lost. With much effort I got him back to bed and called an ambulance to take him to the Emergency Room.  There was no way I could get him down the stairs to take him to the hospital myself.

After waiting in the ER for 5 hours for results of blood work, urinalysis, Xray and CAT scan results it was determined that his left kidney was not emptying and he had an infection. He was admitted to Bay Area Hospital here locally and treated with IV antibiotics for 4 days and released. He seemed to feel better but by the end of the week he had a fever again. Dehydrated and confused I again called the ambulance to come take him to the ER and brace myself for more endless hours of waiting.