Good news - we were at the clinic this morning and the nurse practitioner came over and said they were going to do a bone marrow aspirate, pull the Hickman catheter and then we could go home. We were both a bit surprised, so I asked if she meant home to Wilmington and she said yes! So we are going to pack up the car and head back to Wilmington tomorrow and we don't need to return to Durham until Feb. 20.
The doctor and his staff are all very pleased with how well Peter has done. All his counts are great and he will be monitored once weekly in Wilmington. As long as he is careful, continues to avoid crowds and doesn't catch cold or any viruses all will be good. He will continue to need daily naps so that his system doesn't get runned down.
The bone marrow aspirate seemed to go well today, of course Peter had a happy pill before that so he was ok during it. After she finished the aspirate she told him to roll over, take off his shirt, and proceeded to remove the Hickman catheter from his chest. He was abit surprised at how she did it - she wrapped the exposed part of the catheter around her hand, put the other hand on his chest, told him to take a deep breath and blow out slowly, and then she just pulled it out. It seemed to come out fairly easily - the part that went into his chest and into the right atrium of his heart was about 12-15 inches long! I asked Peter if he wanted to save it to display at home, but he felt that he had had it long enough and it could go into the trash here.
Discharge instructions were quite interesting. He can drive, but needs to "re-learn" in empty parking lots and avoid traffic for awhile. He will stay on several of his meds for just a few more weeks, but some will stay for 6 mos-1 year and I think he stays on one drug for the rest of his life. One thing we did not realize is that a fungal lung infection could be fatal - it is hard to treat especially if it is not caught early enough. That means no yard work of any kind and limited exposure to the basement. Thank goodness we are in a townhouse and the yardwork is included in the home owner's dues!
That's all the news for now. I will continue to update the blog, probably only on a weekly basis. Please feel free to email (wendywhy@charter.net) or call when we are home. We would love to talk to everyone.
Wendy
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