The adventure continues

Today Vern, Hannah, James and I headed for Atlanta at about 0830 to be here for an 11oo show time in day surgery. The plan: to remove James' second failed port, replace it with a new double lumen Hickman and have a spinal tap, during which he would get the first part of his methotrexate. The rest of the plan included being admitted to the hospital to get the rest of his methotrexate and then flushing and hopefully, Lord willing, being home for supper on Friday night.

Just before James was supposed to leave for the OR, Dr. Keller came to see us--it was his first visit to the day surgery floor. He came to tell us that the whole hospital was so full that there was no bed for James for tonight. His preference was that we at least proceed with the port removal and Hickman insertion, but he gave us the option of delaying the chemo til next week or coming back tomorrow to be admitted (he is fairly confident there will be a room for us, because they expect to have five discharges tomorrow on the cancer center floor and James will have priority for a bed because his chemo would already be started).

At first, I thought that perhaps pushing out the chemo would be a good thing in terms of planning for other things going on at home. Then I found myself saying that we could stay but we needed a place to stay for the night, and we wanted to be able to continue with the normal protocol, just like we had been in the hospital in order to not delay James' chemo. That meant we needed to be able to give James his bicarbonate solution--either by g-tube or by IV-- so that he would be more likely to be ready for chemo in the morning. Dr. Keller thought that was a great idea and reiterated the importance of starting James' IV methotrexate within 24 hours of getting intrathecal (in the spinal fluid) methotrexate. He left to get the ball rolling with the social worker to find us a place to stay for the night.

I was truly impressed with how things came together. It seems that the Lord has had his hand on everything, causing it to work out for our good, even when things didn't seem so great. If I tried to explain all the good, it would take too much space and time, but I'll try to share a few.

The Ronald McDonald house was full, so we ended up staying at a nice motel just down the road from the hospital. We got their last room (paid for with funds from a special hospital account with donations solely for helping families like ours), which ended up having a kitchenette. In order to save funds and eat better, we had brought our own food from home, so we were able to easily fix and eat supper and take care of all James needed. It has been a quiet, restful evening (for the most part) and we are looking forward to retiring soon.

Because we were in the hotel, we had to use our feeding pump, which decided not to work. We ended up calling the company, which is local here, to see if they could help. They ended up bringing us the new, upgraded version of the pump and setting it for us to have a couple of extra helpful features. This was a wonderful bonus, which I realize not all will appreciate, but you'll have to trust me. :*)

By, hopefully being at the hospital one fewer night, that will be a little less lack of continuity in nursing care and more sanity care for mom.

I'm always glad to have more time with Vern--even when I have to share him!

There were some other amazing and encouraging things as well. While we are in the hospital, I hope to be able to share a little more of what is going on in the homesteading part of our big adventure.

In the mean time, sleep well.

Love, Stephanie