Sunday, January 11

Ever since Wednesday night, Sou was had a fever. He tried Tylenol, Motrin, Nyquil, etc and still wasn't feeling better. By Sunday morning, he still had a fever and decided to go to the clinic I work at. We thought he'd just be seen and then we could get a bite to eat after. At the time, he was also having belly pain. To rule out appendicitis, they drew his blood. Just about all his counts were low. Then it was off to the emergency room. 

When we arrived, they took his vital signs and got him into a room right away. After a brief chit chat with the doc, he order a bunch of blood tests to confirm the CBC from First Care, urine stuff, a CAT scan with a barium enema (not fun lol), a chest x-ray and IV fluids. The first thing they took care of was the CAT scan. 

They unlocked his bed brakes and began rolling him down the hall towards CAT scan. The tech that was taking him mentioned the barium enema part. I didn't think much of it cause I assumed they would have a bathroom nearby! But that wasn't the case=) They made me wait outside in a chair. Five minutes later, the same tech started rolling him down the hall, back towards his room. On the way there, Sou was like, "Gotta go bathroom." As they rolled him into his room, all the tech said was, "Okay, go left, then right, kay?" Then he left. Bastard. So Sou hops out of bed and starts saying, "Gotta GO! GOTTA GO!" 

"Well GO THEN!" I told him.

"AHHH HELP!!!!!!" His IV was tangled with the bedrail!!!! 

"NURSE...HELP!!!" The people at the nurses station just looked at me and said, "What do you need?" I look at Sou and he's going in circles.

"AHH It's dripping!!!!!!!" Finally he just unscrewed it loose and some dude escorted him to the bathroom. Yes it didn't seem all that funny at the time. But I have no idea why they didn't just take him to the bathroom or have a bathroom nearby. 

Next was a series of blood draws and the urine sample. That went surprisingly well being that Sou's not a needle person. It took a lot just for him to get a flu shot this year. After all the tests were reviewed by the doc, he came in and told us that Sou would be spending the night there. An hour later, a hematologist came by and said that he would be needing to take some bone marrow and a piece of bone the next morning. After all the needle sticks, Sou asked, "Is it gonna hurt?"

"Is it gonna hurt me? No." he joked. With that being said, I knew it wasn't gonna be fun. But I didn't say anything. Before that doc had left, he said that blood counts could be low due to a virus, aplastic anemia, or leukemia. With the bone marrow, we would be able to tell what Sou had.

For the next two hours we waited for someone to bring us up to his room. He was put on the oncology floor. The room had a nice view and he had his own bathroom, which was nice. The nurse informed us that he would be isolated and wasn't allowed to leave his room because of his white blood cell count. They said it was almost non-existent. Because of this, every nurse that came in had a gown and mask. No children were allowed to visit. No one that had any sign of illness was not allowed either. Even plants and flowers were off limits. The rest of the night we just hung out. I curled up on a chair and fell asleep. I wasn't looking forward to watching a spinal tap and thought a couple times about how I could not be present. Then I remembered that Sou had nobody else, no one else in town at least.