What a day..and it was pretty unproductive

What a day...let's start with the weather... The storm that was supposed to delay our arrival yesterday was worse over night. Dr. Griffiths emailed us to see if we wanted to stay put and postpone the appointments. We didn't postpone, but the short icy road trip from our hotel to the hospital was very interesting. You'll be happy to know that I kept the car on the road and we arrived on time, but the 2 mile or less trip took about a half hour.

Schools were closed, businesses too. But we made it just fine.

First up registration and parking stickers, than blood labs, than a PICC. The PICC ended up being a very interesting part of our day. Trish's blood still showed the blasts confirming her relapse is real. The rest of her counts seem to be holding steady, which is a good sign. On to the PICC.

The PICC is another form of central line -- last time Trish had the Hickman central line which is inserted through a surgical procedure in her chest. The P in PICC stands for peripheral, in this case it means that it is inserted into the arm and threaded blindly through her blood vessel to just above her heart. Sounds simple doesn't it.... Well this procedure took all day.

The first step is to find a good vein using ultra sound. Jane, our nurse who did the procedure, couldn't find a good vein in her non-writing arm (left). She than found a vein in her right arm that would work. The only sedation is some lidicane at the insertion point. An IV needle goes in first, than the catheter is threaded up a guide wire. The first try left Trish feeling a weird sensation in her neck. After they insert the catheter, they make you get up and walk across the hospital to take an X-Ray to see if they got it right. Well indeed they inserted it ino her neck. So the had to pull it out and try again. Second try, one more X-Ray, it was near the heart but it went slightly past the heart and pointed up. Pointing up is bad, because if they inject an air bubble it will travel to the brain and that's bad. Try three, this time they try to reposition it without removing it. They pull back on the catheter and send us for another X-Ray. We wait for the results.

While we are waiting Jane checked in with Makaela up on 5A. She is the nurse in charge of training other nurses and was the one who explained to my Dad and I all about Trish's M5 diagnosis and what that meant back in October 2005 when Trish was first admitted. When Jane told Mikaela and the other nurses who her patient was, there was excitement and saddness. They were sad Trish was back, we acually visited them in November and they were so happy she was still in remission than. After we were done waiting for the third X-Ray - we went up to visit the gang on 5A and it was a happy homecoming despite the reasons. They are already plotting to try and move one of their current patients to make room for Trish in their nest.

So, the third X-Ray showed the proper placement of the PICC. Trish's arm is very sore tonight from all the activity, but we were done. This was at 3 or 4pm, so you might be wondering what happened with the bone marrow biopsy that was scheduled for today? It is now scheduled for tomorrow at 10:30a.m. It wasn' just the extended PICC Party that delayed this test, but the fact that the pathology lab was shut down due to the weather today.

So tomorrow we will get the bone marrow done and potentially, but not yet confirmed, she may be admitted tomorrow.

Some other items of note from the day: Trish and I spent some quality time with Dr. Griffiths.... Probably the happiest thing we got from her today was a dinner recommendation. For a total of $23 Trish had a great bowl of potato soup and I had the BEST corned beef and cabbage ever at the James Joyce Pub, just a block from our hotel. By far this meal beat the Flemings steak dinner that cost 4X as much.

Some of the other things we discussed included length of stay, next steps and what happens along the way. But I think I might save some of these uglier details for another posting.

Some good news is that we spoke with our insurance transplant case manager today and she thinks that the negotiated fixed price for a bone marrow transplant (BMT) is less than we were told it would cost. This is important because we are already nearly at the halfway point of our total lifetime maximum for insurance benefits. When we hit that limit -- we are uninsured. That's the scary thought that occupied most of my brain cells since last Friday. After getting this news today, I'll only spend 10% per day worrying about this. We should at least make it through the transplant with benefits.

Trish and I went walking in the cold tonight to get some audio books and we took some pictures, and some pictures from the drive this morning. I'll post the pictures here now and go on to work-work. Check in tomorrow for an update on whether she's been admitted or not.