Keeping things interesting

 I used to be boring. Seriously. Before cancer, pre-2018, I'd never even had a cavity or a broken bone.

Now I have a blood clot.

I guess officially it is a DVT though it is in the upper inside of my beleagured right arm, not either leg. Never even thought about getting one there. Saturday morning I awakened to a more-swollen-than-usual hand and an arm that felt like it was someone else's but had been sewn onto my body. When I bent my elbow for a few seconds and then released, the skin went from pinkish-purple (not my usual skin tone) to yellow-white before returning to the shade of rose. 

Of course it was on a Saturday. Of course I'd just seen my oncologist and my PT gal on Thursday. So here's me, playing phone tag with the oncologist on call whom I've never met. He encouraged me to go to the closest ER but that one didn't have ultrasound availablility until Monday, so we rerouted to the hospital attached to where I had chemo, got my vascular ultrasound, and within 15 minutes of being finished was formally informed of the blood clot. However, the tech had already showed me on the screen the spot that didn't squish together under compression of the doppler wand, so I was unsurprised to get the news.

I have been on 2.5 mg of Eliquis as a preventative measure since my venogram on April 20th, with the hope that this wouldn't happen. I didn't really dream that it would be an issue, but here we are.

I discontinued the Eliquis and have been upgraded, lucky me, to twice daily injections of Lovenox for a month. On Saturday, the hospital gave me a dose and a half, I think, to tide me over until my prescription was filled. However, the pharmacy was out of stock and won't have it until today, so yesterday it was back to the hospital for another dose to get me through until I can pick up the meds. Thankfully, the ER doc from further away coordinated with the closer one so I was able to get yesterday's dose without the longer drive. I love it when a plan comes together.

Poor Dada had no idea what he was getting into when he vowed, "in sickness and in health" and probably never dreamed that he would be giving me shots in my belly, the outsides of my thighs, and the back of my left arm since the right is off limits due to the lymphedema. Once again, I am more medically interesting than I want to be!

Gotta love THAT phone call...

By now the entire literate world knows our big kids are testing this spring for their black belts in karate. This makes them "candidates" and we're really excited for them. 

So last Monday I'm doing the usual tidying up post-weekend and am sprawled over the dog as I brush out her tumbleweeds when my out-of-reach cell phone rings. I almost ignored it and got in the shower anyway, because let's face it, I just am not going to live a life tethered to my phone. It's not who I am. I don't call anyone if I can possibly help it. 

Then my gut grumbles, "aw, it's probably the school." It meant the elementary school because that's where Things Two and Three spend their days, and if anyone was having a meltdown or some bordering-on-the-unbelievable accident, my money was on either of them. Or both.

Nope.

Maybe that's what they mean by, "don't let your feelings become the facts." Ha.

The voicemail runs something like this: hi, uh, Mom? Y'know how you said since I'm a candidate it'd be a bad time to get hurt? Sorry. Yeah, I sprained my ankle. Can you come get me?"

*insert colorful metaphors here, cuz that's what I did*

I get her and the story goes like this. She was headed down the stairs, got hooded from behind (though she swears this was unrelated), WAS HOLDING THE RAILING, DAD, clipped the stair overhang wrong so twisted her ankle to the left, then rammed into the next stair down which twisted the ankle to the right, then went down some stairs on her nonexistent bum, all while still holding on to the railing. A friend hauled her up and had to pry her hand off the railing because she was clenching it so hard. 

So my brain pipes up, "remember all those urgent care commercials on the radio that say they can treat stuff for less and for faster? Remember sitting in the ER when Damon stuffed the bead up his nose?"

Right. We head to urgent care, sign in, are seen, finally are asked what the problem is and then are informed that their Xray machine is down. They give us a scrip to head to the outpatient Xray wing at the hospital where she is in and out in probably a half hour including wait times.

We call the urgent care for the results (that's what the ER folks told us to do) and get the news: normal, no fractures.

So air cast goes on and we do the recommended RICE- rest, ice, compress, elevate. She stayed home the rest of the day and skipped Tuesday because she felt it was too stiff to try walking on. Since the kid rarely misses school and their big state tests were going to be Wednesday and Thursday, I figured we could let it slide since they're probably not working them really hard pre-tests. Of course, that means that my Monday was totally derailed between school/urgent care/ER and I had a patient on Tuesday in between all my errands. 

She skipped all her karate classes for the week (and that is why I make you go more often than you need so, so that you have the backup classes under your belt during a catastrophe, charming daughter) and then she and her brother both aced their second of three (self defense) black belt tests.

Well done, you two. Her partner was super sweet and considerate of her injury as she went to the test wearing the air cast for extra support. I kept telling her that someday she'll have to say, "sorry, Mr. Attacker, can you take it a little easier on me cuz I was in a cast for my black belt test and Savannah was not enough of a bully..." I think those two grinned at each other the whole way through the test. I should probably mention Savannah is already a black belt and is testing for her next degree and Carrie is a twig who could easily be snapped over Savannah's knee...

So anyway, all is mended and we are that much closer to having black belts in the house. I suppose the lesson is to grow a bum because there's no guarantee that the railing will come to your rescue.

How Not to Start a Vacation

So this is the kid who saves her first visit to the ER until we're A) out of network, B) out of state, C) on vacation, or D) all of the above. 

Since, I can't print it upside down anywhere, the answer is just plain old D. 

We left on a Thursday morning to head to the Outer Banks. We spent one night in a hotel en route and then finished off our trip on Friday morning. We made it to Lainie's at noon on Friday. 

By 4:30 PM we were in the ER after a stop in to Urgent Care where we were told that A) they didn't have a pediatric care person and B) based on her symptoms she'd need an ultrasound which they also didn't have so C) report to ER a few miles down the beach.

Okiedokie. 

We inform the ER staff that she's presenting with severe lower right abdominal pain and vomiting so they prep her, do a urine test, get a port in so they can draw blood (and during which we confirmed she is related to her PaPa and Hinrew as she passed out and thrashed around) and ordered an ultrasound. They didn't find any infection in her urine, though she was dehydrated (big surprise to anyone who knows her. Not.) so they ran a bag of fluids, which made her cold. They didn't find an elevated white blood cell count. They didn't find anything enlarged or in any way out of the ordinary during the ultrasound. Based on all of that, they released her and told us to return in several hours if she started a fever, which she also didn't have, or if the pain intensified.

Well, the pain did intensify and had her begging to go back to the ER, which is something I never thought would come out of her mouth especially once she was reminded that they've have to stick her again. It hadn't been anywhere near the timetable they'd told us, either, so cooler heads prevailed and we got some Advil into her for a little while before it came back up, too. She finally got some sleep at around one AM and slept through the rest of the night. She was kept on a clear diet for 24 hours and then some, but she was very much her old self. I'm sure the ocean helped.

I can't say enough good things about the staff. Everyone was calm, friendly, reassuring- everything you want someone to be towards a scared, hurting kid. They all loved her, as she was as sweet and funny as she could be given the circumstances, including telling her male nurse that he smelled good, which tickled him to no end.  

The general consensus seems to be "hormone dump", which freaked her out because she thought that it would hurt like that every single time from here on out. She hasn't officially started anything yet, but Those in the Know are hedging bets on fairly soon and that it won't be that bad again. 

If she hijacks MY cycle, I'm sticking her with the ER bill...