I'm back...

From the hospital! Saturday night I needed to poop. Took a Colace like they told me to so I could go in the morning. No go, just bad stomach ache. So I move on to milk of magnesia which is what they told me to do. No go, just worse stomach ache. I'm desperate. Used glycerin suppositories twice in attempt to move the bowels. No success no I'm just in plain old pain. I'm beyond desperate now. Dad goes and gets a fleet enema. Ok use the enema, the pain oh the pain I'm sitting on the pot, arms wrapped around my mother's waist yelling for mercy and finally finally the cannon ball drops, followed immediately by violent diarrhea turbo charging out my butt. I swear if I hadn't been holding onto my mother I would have flown off the toilet seat with the impact. How can one go from being constipated beyond belief to diarrhea in an instant is beyond me but apparently common in the chemo world. In the hospital the nurses said oh the cork popped. Now I'm taking Imodium to try to stop the diarrhea and vomiting is setting in. Time to call the doctor. Doctor on call tells me to try to take the anti nausea meds and sip small amounts of water. I can't keep down the pills. I throw in the towel and said that's it take me to Hoag.

Hoag is a beautiful place if you have to be in a hospital. The oncology ward knows what the hell they are doing. ER had things under control shortly and then they told me I was checking in. Fine with me. Now in my humble opinion this is just how your first round of chemo should go.You should just be checked into the hospital. Sure I get it, its not cost effective but damn it they just don't know how you are going to respond the first time. You don't know. You don't know if you are going too far or far enough. Its all a mystery and quite frankly well it still is. They have the nausea thing under wraps I'll tell you that but, this whole bowel thing not so much. Each person you talk to will tell you do to something different. Well, crap. Literally. So you have to maintain your bowels through this thing as if you have just eaten something bad and you don't know how its going to hit you. That's how I'm thinking of it.

So I have three more chemos to go. I feel really good about the fact that if I go to Hoag they can get it under control.

It was an emotional experience. The ER doctor was a big burly guy and he leans over me and asks what kind of cancer do you have? I say breast cancer and he says oh my wife was diagnosed two 1/2 years ago. I grabbed him said I'm so sorry and blubbered all over the guy. I imagine he was thinking oops wrong thing to say.

The oncology ward, that was tough. Shit, I didn't even feel like I belonged there. There were just people in bad shape. I was having trouble with my chemo, they were not going home any time soon. My dad and I spent time walking the halls and crying.

Staff was great, just remember when you are in the hospital to leave you modestly at home. Mine was no where to be found and beware in future because I have completely lost it. And it amused the hell out of me how one minute the nurses were trying to give me a sense of modesty by giving two gowns go wear, one to cover my front and one to cover the back and the next moment they were just opening the door to the bathroom and sticking their heads in you ok? Made me laugh, yea I'm ok just shitting.

Home now. Oh a bath felt so good. I go to the doctors on Friday and well, tomorrow is another day.

Love to all.