We Have a Bed!

10 1/2 hours of waiting in the ER and Jim finally was brought to a room on the 15th floor. It was 1 am. I have never seen an ER so crowded. Stretchers and wheelchairs all along the walls. The ER at MSK is just for cancer patients, that was even harder to believe. One of the delays last night was Jim showed positive for the rhinovirus which is responsible for the common cold. Since he was positive he was required to have a private room. There are not many private rooms available on the regular floors so he had to wait for them to find one. He ended up on another floor, not the lymphoma floor. Another bummer is that he is on isolation for the next 4 days. This protects the other patients from getting the rhinovirus. Everyone entering his room must wear gloves, gown and masks. After he was settled in I walked back to the apartment finally falling asleep at 2:30. Luckily my apartment is just a brisk 5 minute walk from the hospital. There were cars still on the road and there is a bellman at the building so I did not feel nervous.

Today was busy. The first of many teams came to the room by 8:00. Jim was seen by the lymphoma team, the surgical team and the infectious disease team. Food and drink were withheld until after he had another needle biopsy of the affected area. Luckily this time they gave him a sedative and he was able to sleep through the procedure. He finally was able to eat and drink at 4:30. Dr. Horwitz's fellow spoke with us and the plan for now is to continue with Friday's transplant date if the underarm area reduces in size and the new biopsy does not show more bacterial growth. Hopefully the IV antibiotics will do the job to heal the area. That's all we know for now.

I still am enjoying keeping up with the DC eaglets and their parents.