Visit to the ER...

Only a few of you know that I went to the hospital on Friday evening. I had been having such an incredible pain in between my shoulder blades. It got so bad that the pain was radiating through my chest and down both my arms. I thought it was a muscle spasm from a rib out or something. I took one of my Oxycontin 10mg at 3pm with no relief, then another at 4pm. By 6pm I hurt so bad that I didn't have much strength left in my arms. Deron was working and Bill was riding with him. They called Shyri because they were very concerned about me. By the time Shyri got to my house, another Sergeant had come on duty and Deron and Bill came home so they could all take me to the hospital. When we arrived in the ER it was only minutes before they had me doing an EKG. That showed everything was normal with my heart which was a relief. Only minutes later they had me back in a room and hooked up to monitors. They gave me Morphine to relieve my pain. The rest of my body was feeling great but the pain in my back and chest had not gone away. It wasn't until they gave me an anti inflammatory called Toradol that I finally had relief. We did a CT of the chest, X-ray of the chest, VQ Scan (to make sure there were no blood clots in my lungs), blood work, ultra sounds of my legs and arms (again for any blood clots), and I think that was it. The VQ scan showed that I was in the moderate range for possible clots (ranges are low, moderate and high risk). No clots showed in the ultra sounds, but what did show a stress fracture on the T6 vertebrae with the X-ray . This is concerning for a few reasons. Either my bones have become so brittle from the chemo or there is the fear of the cancer spreading to the bones and that's why they are so brittle. I can't remember falling, getting hit, doing anything that would cause a fracture. The only thing that comes to mind was when we were in Disneyland riding this certain ride...it was very jerky and was uncomfortable with my back...but that was almost 3 weeks ago. Tomorrow we are calling our team at Mayo to update them on this weekends events and to request a bone density test and supplements to help my bones.
While this was all going on I was telling the doctors to hurry up with getting the results because Dylan and Kyrstin both had opening day for little league and both had a game at 10am. We did end up missing the games but met my parents and the kids for brunch afterwards (since the cafeteria was closed each time Deron went to get us food at the hospital). They looked so cute in their uniforms. Dylan played catcher the entire game and wants to be the catcher for the whole season. Our friends Beth and Jimmy told us how well the kids played.
We were in the hospital from 8:30pm Friday night until 11am Saturday afternoon. I'm glad to be home. Yes...I wore a mask the entire time I was there and the nurses were great with me since my counts were low. I am taking Motrin to keep my body calm. I haven't needed to take any pain meds since being home. I'll keep you posted on what we discover and our plan of action for the newest issue with me. That is the one thing about me...go ahead and give me a diagnosis but you also have to give me a plan of action on how we are going to fix the problem. So for the next few days we will just hurry up and wait. I hope you all had a great weekend. I'm asking for more prayers that my bones are just brittle from the chemo and not brittle from the cancer.

Much love,

Kim