Bumpity Bump

The familiar sound of the church bells ringing at 7:00 this morning made me realize we were back at the Hope Lodge. We boarded the 8:30 shuttle to get to the Upper East Side. Jimmy's appointment was scheduled for 9:30. The first thing I did when we arrived to the hospital was walk back to the apartment building and inquire about getting back into the room to find my phone charger. Luckily it was right where I thought it was.

On days when Jim has to be at the hospital we will plan on being there for many hours. Today he had blood work and vitals. Then we waited in a waiting room full of masked people. Everyone including me should wear a mask to protect all patients, especially those like Jim who are immunocompromised. Next we met with the NP, Shani. She is Dr. Sauter's personal nurse practitioner so we will meet with her most of the time when we go in for appointments. Shani was very pleasant. She was good at explaining things. For instance it would not be unusual for Jim to have a really good day walking and feeling energized and then being totally exhausted and fatigued the next day. One thing I like about MSK is most everyone we have connected with has been very good at teaching. It does not hurt to hear something over and over. Dr. Sauter was the last person to come in. He smiled and told Jim he placed in the top ten percentile for patient doing well after an allo transplant. That was good to hear. We had our list of questions to ask, one of them was would Jim have to have routine bone marrow biopsies to monitor his progress. No Sauter said. He will be monitored with blood tests and PET Scans. That was a relief.

Jim had to have a liter of fluids and IV magnesium today. They put us back in a little private room and it took about an hour and a half. We arrived back to the Hope Lodge around 3:30. Organizing the room was on my agenda but I was too tired to do it. Jim lay down for a while and I went to prepare an early dinner.

Around 9:30 Jimmy felt chilled and his temperature registered 100.7. DARN!!!!!
Anything over 100.4 merits a call to the on call doctor. Because Jimmy is so fresh post transplant they told us to go to the ER. We took a cab and arrived at 10:30. He was seen by a nurse within the first 10 minutes, they put a line in him, the ER doctor assessed him and they brought us in the back to a room. Unfortunately they will work him up for a possible infection. That means chest x-ray, blood cultures, and at least a 48 hour admission to the floor. Needless to say Jim is not a happy camper. We knew there would be setbacks so lets hope this is a brief one. Who knows when he will be moved to a floor. We are both tired but unfortunately this goes with the territory. I'll update everyone tomorrow.