Dude, Cancer sucks. I will prove it to you.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Stupid Little Bug

You know what I love?  I love sports.  It is awesome and I wish that I could have a job where I was involved only in sports.  If anyone out there knows of an opening for such a job, please let me know.

You know what I hate?  I hate the entire family of fast growing myco bacteria.  Additionally I hate cancer, and I hate my son being in a hospital room (although he is with Unca Chris so he is, I am sure, having the time of his life and is probably about to be kicked out of the hospital of troublemakery), and I hate cancer, and I hate that my son missed his soccer game, and I hate cancer, and I hate that the baseball season is not over, and I hate cancer, and I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that I can't fix him.

This is stupid.  I am tired of getting kicked in the nuts.  I don't aks fo much.  All I want is for my family (that includes the chickens) to be healthy.

Enough feeling sorry for myself.

I have an admission to make.  I have relapsed.  For any of you fighting addiction  you know how hard it is to quit.  I had kicked my nasty habit for an entire season, and I thought that I was in the clear.  But one night I was sitting around flipping channels when I just happened to land on the right channel at the right time, and all my previous work was for naught.  So I find myself back to being addicted, and must ask myself, what would Gemma do?

Thursday, October 4, 2012

GI Joe

Well at least now we know, and knowing is a portion (can't remember the exact percentage) of the battle.

They finally figured out why Cole has been having all these fevers.  He has developed a bacterial infection that is in his bloodstream and has infected his lungs.  Now before you freak out too much, we managed to catch it early enough that we can treat it.

The bacteria (who I have affectionately named "stupid son of a bitch how dare you fuck with my kid."  and I am going to go all Gemma on its ass) is part of a family (I think one of the 5 out of NY) of bacteria that can be found in dirt and in water and in air and in everything that touches us.  Now us non-chemo types are able to effectively and efficiently tell Mr. bacteria to take a flying leap into a giant pool of hot dinosaur poop.  Unfortunately Cole is not so lucky.

So Mr. B is here to stay for a while.  You see, he is a slow growing bacteria so apparently it takes longer to completely eradicate the bastard.  By longer I mean that Cole will be on antibiotics for......wait for it.......keep waiting for it.......quit complaining it''''''s not like you have anything better to do.............almost there............here it comes............at least six months, and possibly up to a year.  SUPER (please insert a slight lisp on the S and hold the R for at least 4.32344530948504983045984 seconds)!!!!!!!!!

The crazy thing about this whole banana operation is that it was kind of dumb luck and crazy good timing that we (I say we in order to be inclusive.  I know I am not a doctor but since my premium pays their salary, I can say we.) were able to figure it out.  I have been told by a guy with a clipped ear (not joking) that this bacteria does not usually grow in the normal culture bottles that they use, so it was sheer dumb luck that any cultures grew at all (it was the first one they drew way back at the beginning of last (i.e.g. crappy) week) and it explained why only one culture grew.  They would probably still be TSing Cole had he not had his scheduled CT scan today.  The CT showed images consistent with this type of bacterial infection.

After they figured this out they/we decided to take out Cole's central line.  They replaced it with an IV in his hand, and after they get on the front end of the infection (a few days from now) they will install a pic (k?) line in his arm instead of the central line in the chest.

I know that in the bigger scheme of things 20 months is not very long, but Cole has had his line in for 20 months and I have gotten to the point that I don't even remember him not having it.  It looks strange to see his chest without those damn lines and without that dirty orange pouch around his neck.

Fever is still high (peaked at 104.2), so we have turned the room into an icebox.

Cole will be here in the hospital for a few days, and then should be able to go home, and pretty soon get back into school.

Sorry if this post is more of a standard (well at least as standard as I can be) update, and lack my usual wit and elegance, but I am tired of this crap and don't feel whitey.

Maybe tomorrow will be more fun.  In the meantime please raise your glasses and toast Cole, badass mofo who don't take no crap off of nobody.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Crappy Week

When last we spent time together, our hero had just gotten out of the hospital.  We pick the story back up on Friday evening.  I drove home from work excited to put this insane week behind me and relax (as much as that is possible with 3 boys, 3 chickens, and an epileptic dog with allergies).  We normally go to SJ for family pizza night, but that had been cancelled.  I just wanted to go home, play with the wife and kids, and then after they go to bed find a reason to go across the street so that I can get free booze at Rossi's Pub.  As I am sure you can predict (due mostly to the fact that this entire blog is all about crap that I do not want), my (I think) simple (I tried not to parenthizie, but I just can't help myself) relaxation (now this is getting silly.  someone should talk some sense into me) plan (it is becoming difficult to even get through this sentence) was not to be.  My fatal error was that I failed to realize that weeks start on Sunday (despite the confusing title of weekend)(yes weeks do start on Sunday.  Look at a calendar.  This one was your fault.  Stop interrupting).  Of course when I got home Cole had a fever.  Of course we had to go to the ER (driving to Santa Clara at 6:30 on a Friday = crappy).  Of course we did not get home until 11:45.  Of course I am not done.

Again to recap.  Weeks do not end until Saturday is over.  Now, on Saturday the sun was shining and Cole was feeling good.  So good that he was going to play in his soccer game.  We were playing at the house.  Some of the neighborhood kids came over to play in the tree house and chase chickens.  All in all it was a great morning.  Then, the week did not end.

(Author's Note: If you have read this blog at all you realize that I have only a very tenuous grasp of truth and reality.  However, the next paragraph is completely real and serious)

I was holding Oliver in the back yard and talking with Frank (neighbor) and Elisa.  I was pointing at the garden as I was saying something about chicken proofing the garden when all of a sudden, Oliver moved and  he slipped out of my arms.  He fell to the ground, landing on the cement.  It looked like he hit head first and there was a loud banging sound that just might haunt me forever.  We rushed to the ER, but we are so used to ER visits, especially how long they take, that Elisa just dropped Oliver and I off and took Cole and Logan to the soccer game. (A small geographic explanation is warranted here.  We usually go to Kaiser in Santa Clara for Cole, but for normal ER stuff we can go to a closer Kaiser.  In this instance, we went to SSF).

(Enough of the super serious.  Bring on the irreverence)

The ER at SSF (to which I have now been 4 times.  Once when Cole tried to take a short corner in the apartment and ended up headbutting the corner of the wall, once when Elisa had an ear infection, once when Elisa obtained a freak redwood splinter under the fingernail, and now this) is old and small (the entire ER could fit inside the waiting room of the Santa Clara ER) and has no TV.  So there I was (I forgot to mention that since it was hot outside when I bounced the baby, he was only in a diaper) in the ER registration line with a screaming half naked baby and boy did I feel like white trash.  All I needed was to be wearing a stained wife beater and be drunk (which of course I wasn't.  I should have, per Papa Sam, been holding some booze so that people would think I was drunk and not just stupid).  Some nurse clearly felt sorry for me and rushed me in, completely cutting in front of the lady who was about to puke into her purse, or on the registration lady, or on any one of us.  They took us back to a room and Oliver took one look at all the fun things in a hospital room and immediately stopped crying and started grabbing for things.  The nurse did some quick vitals and then Dr. Skater came in (please note that his name was not really Dr. Skater, but he was wearing vans) (really, a doctor wearing vans).  He took one look at my laughing (I am pretty sure he was laughing at me.) baby and said that everything was fine.  This took all of 10 minutes.  Did I mention that Elisa had dropped us off (the dropping off occurred because the clutch in the Jetta needs to be replaced so it was at the shop) and she had gone to the soccer game.  We were there just long enough to make sure that Cole had started his game.  So then I got to hang out in the SSF ER waiting room with a baby (put clothes on him), trying to keep him occupied.

I did get to see some interesting things.  I think I saw some Chinese men abduct a woman in a wheelchair (but as I cannot understand Chinese, they may have just been her family).  I saw a social worker sting operation (It was amazing and exciting and that is all I have to say about that).  I saw a guy try and hook up with a nurse while he was waiting to go in and see him mom.

Then do you know what happened?  The week finally ended.  Sunday finally happened.  It was glorious and I loved it.  We did not go to the ER.  We (I) did not drop any babies.  We did not have to deal with the plague.  There was no nuclear holocaust.

Just writing about this week was nearly as exhausting as living it (er...maybe not) so I am done for now.  While you are waiting for the next installment please raise your glasses and toast Oliver, hard headed as his daddy.