Rough Days

Monday, July 6th, we were on to a new chapter of Barbara's journey. Heading to UAMS now twice a day for my growth factor shots, it keeps us on the road alot. The growth factor shot is to stimulate and build my stem cell. This process normally takes a week, I get a shot of the morning and then approx. 6 hours later. They will know through my blood work whether or not it is time to stop taking the growth factor shot. I am still having to take in a bag of fluid, antibiotic and have blood work done daily. Last week after my thyroid biopsy, I started with a sore throat, it continued several days, they were checking my blood work for infection. Well it carried on and on and developed into an earth shaking cough, each day they seem to prescribe something else to try to help. I can't sleep at night for the coughing and wheezing, even with cough syrup with codeine. Now they have added another cough syrup to the plan. They called a respiratory therapist in today to give me a breathing treatment, also put me on an inhaler and sent me home with a little breathing exerciser, to keep my lungs clear so the infection won't set up there. I hope this will do the trick, the cough is really beginning to get to me. As of today I was told I needed to have my mask on, with this cough and being around other patients. I can't say that I blame them, I would expect the same respect for me. My potassium has been way off as well, the first day this happened they sent me home with what they call a baby bottle, this can be sent home with something you need, like antibiotic or potassium. This is just hooked to my line I already have in. Like I said the first day I needed one baby bottle, it takes about 6 hours to feed through. I thought I would be done with that but the next day I was alot lower so I was sent home with 3 baby bottles to switch out that afternoon, night and the next morning. Andrew got to share this experience with me. My potassium is back up so I hope it will stay there. Well it is time to do my breathing and get to bed, so we can do it all over again tomorrow. I do see the doctor tomorrow, Dr. B. is out, I will be seeing one of his partners.