When I look out of my hospital window taking great care to avoid the almost-finished parking garage, and use the squat, but-still-taller-than-most red-brick apartmentment building and the taller structures of the aforementioned parking garage as a frame. I actually have a quite scenic view of Baltimore Harbor (Huh, a tug pulling a tanker! Haven't seen that yet). My view looks over the roofs of some rowhouses and federal style buildings that all seem to be in good shape, lacking the wear-and-tear you find in parts of the city that are, as I look, just one block over. My view of this section of the city seems to indicate that these buildings face each other over some sort of plaza or walkway though it is possible that there is a street there and the traffic is simply hidden from me. This plaza runs from almost the lower left hand corner of my "frame" to about halfway up the right side. There are treetops that peek beyond the roofs of the rowhouses to the right, but they do not seem to be terribly mature and so I might guess that these buildings are not terribly old.
Beyond these buildings are the steeples of two churches, the closest could be of any denomination though I might guess from its size and relative grandeur it is a Catholic Church. It has weatherd tan stone walls and octagonal steeple with a smallish (by comparison) gold cross at the top. The roofs of both the church-proper and the steeple appear to be slate, though I suspect much might appear to be slate when it has been well-drenched in evening rains. The second church building (if it is one at all, now that I've stared at it quite a bit) is placed between the Catholic Church and the harbor. It is more of a simple red building with what I believe is a bell tower on top. What I might have initially thought was the steeple for this church might actually be an adornment of the front of the first church.
It is with all this that 1/2 of my "frame" has been filled. But the interesting things happen on the harbor--a zigzag of water for the harbor around what must be docks or fortuitous juts of land sticking out into it. Add to the picture an appropriate amount of background and sky (I'll keep the bridge and mentally erase the smokestacks). The helicoptors that buzz along that sky and sometime fly right toward me are also a nice source of amusement (when one doesn't think about why helicoptors come to Hopkins).
I've woken to the sound of pump alarm bells too often this AM to try to sleep any longer and so here I am posting. And reflecting on a pretty trying week. In my last post I mentioned, and even made light of, the fevers I was having. Well, a couple turned into several days in a row, with fever coming and going only with the administration of Tylenol. Finally, on Tuesday morning this week I woke up with a fever. One I did not know about before going to bed (for the astute readers) and it had spiked to 103.8 degrees. I was admitted at Hopkins in time for rounds that morning. These fevers, given their intensity, had been pegged for an infection of some sort but . . . all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't get Russ out of bed and into his regular discourses.
And so we were caught in this loop. Everyone would look at me and my symptoms and say, "he's got an infection . . . somewhere". Everyone would look at the roster of medication I was taking and say, "We've got him covered for viral, bacterial, or fungal infections".
As it turns out, a blood culture taken 5 days ago has now grown out and shows a seemingly signficant infection (given Marla's reaction when I reiterated what little I knew at that point) contained in the lines of my catheter. Easy to treat--yank the catheter out. And so we did, yesterday. But I'm still getting the meds and the fluids and so that means I now have two (stay tuned for tomorrows post where I explain that this statement isn't exactly true) traditional IV ports in my left arm. I am pleased to report that I'm closing in on 24 hours without a fever, I also saw a return in my appetite last night, and I awoke without a headache for the first time in about a week.
But probably the most significant news came during the hunt for the source of the fevers. As various tests were run and crossed off the list, the question came up that perhaps my fever was a result of a recurrence of leukemia in the marrow. To date, even what must be only a few weeks ago, all marrow checks had been clean. But, running out of options they again did a bone marrow biopsy. I learned on Wednesday afternoon that there were leukemic cells in my marrow. In essence, this means that my first attempt at remission has not been successful. And now we are full-steam toward a second attempt. The real handwringing comes with the knowledge that each subsequent attempt comes with less and less chance of achieving remission. Don't ask me numbers. I've forgotten them. However, I don't believe they depicted staggering odds against achieving remission on a second attempt. I choose to remain hopeful.
The comforting news is that the bone marrow administrative processes are behind us. This means that when I achieve remission I will be able to be placed directly into the transplant routine and hopefully we could transplant within days, not weeks. So it seems I will be here at Hopkins for a bit as I believe all of these processes may well bleed (pun intended) into one another. If that is the case, I may have this nice view to myself for a number of weeks while getting chemo and recovering. It is a good one for sitting and thinking. Sitting and thinking is good for blogging. Beware.
As always, thanks for reading:
--Russ.
Beyond these buildings are the steeples of two churches, the closest could be of any denomination though I might guess from its size and relative grandeur it is a Catholic Church. It has weatherd tan stone walls and octagonal steeple with a smallish (by comparison) gold cross at the top. The roofs of both the church-proper and the steeple appear to be slate, though I suspect much might appear to be slate when it has been well-drenched in evening rains. The second church building (if it is one at all, now that I've stared at it quite a bit) is placed between the Catholic Church and the harbor. It is more of a simple red building with what I believe is a bell tower on top. What I might have initially thought was the steeple for this church might actually be an adornment of the front of the first church.
It is with all this that 1/2 of my "frame" has been filled. But the interesting things happen on the harbor--a zigzag of water for the harbor around what must be docks or fortuitous juts of land sticking out into it. Add to the picture an appropriate amount of background and sky (I'll keep the bridge and mentally erase the smokestacks). The helicoptors that buzz along that sky and sometime fly right toward me are also a nice source of amusement (when one doesn't think about why helicoptors come to Hopkins).
I've woken to the sound of pump alarm bells too often this AM to try to sleep any longer and so here I am posting. And reflecting on a pretty trying week. In my last post I mentioned, and even made light of, the fevers I was having. Well, a couple turned into several days in a row, with fever coming and going only with the administration of Tylenol. Finally, on Tuesday morning this week I woke up with a fever. One I did not know about before going to bed (for the astute readers) and it had spiked to 103.8 degrees. I was admitted at Hopkins in time for rounds that morning. These fevers, given their intensity, had been pegged for an infection of some sort but . . . all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't get Russ out of bed and into his regular discourses.
And so we were caught in this loop. Everyone would look at me and my symptoms and say, "he's got an infection . . . somewhere". Everyone would look at the roster of medication I was taking and say, "We've got him covered for viral, bacterial, or fungal infections".
As it turns out, a blood culture taken 5 days ago has now grown out and shows a seemingly signficant infection (given Marla's reaction when I reiterated what little I knew at that point) contained in the lines of my catheter. Easy to treat--yank the catheter out. And so we did, yesterday. But I'm still getting the meds and the fluids and so that means I now have two (stay tuned for tomorrows post where I explain that this statement isn't exactly true) traditional IV ports in my left arm. I am pleased to report that I'm closing in on 24 hours without a fever, I also saw a return in my appetite last night, and I awoke without a headache for the first time in about a week.
But probably the most significant news came during the hunt for the source of the fevers. As various tests were run and crossed off the list, the question came up that perhaps my fever was a result of a recurrence of leukemia in the marrow. To date, even what must be only a few weeks ago, all marrow checks had been clean. But, running out of options they again did a bone marrow biopsy. I learned on Wednesday afternoon that there were leukemic cells in my marrow. In essence, this means that my first attempt at remission has not been successful. And now we are full-steam toward a second attempt. The real handwringing comes with the knowledge that each subsequent attempt comes with less and less chance of achieving remission. Don't ask me numbers. I've forgotten them. However, I don't believe they depicted staggering odds against achieving remission on a second attempt. I choose to remain hopeful.
The comforting news is that the bone marrow administrative processes are behind us. This means that when I achieve remission I will be able to be placed directly into the transplant routine and hopefully we could transplant within days, not weeks. So it seems I will be here at Hopkins for a bit as I believe all of these processes may well bleed (pun intended) into one another. If that is the case, I may have this nice view to myself for a number of weeks while getting chemo and recovering. It is a good one for sitting and thinking. Sitting and thinking is good for blogging. Beware.
As always, thanks for reading:
--Russ.
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