Monday, February 2

The yummy-yummy lunch -->

This morning, when the surgeon did Sou's dressing change, I forgot to ask them about the firmness in one of Sou's butt cheeks. Sou said one of his butt cheeks was "harder" than the other. He also complained of some pain too. I was so tired, it slipped my mind. The surgeon said the wound looked really good, just as always. She asked me if I would be comfortable doing his dressing changes out of the hospital. I told her yes. She said she would contact the pain doctors to get a plan set up to get Sou off the fentanyl IV. 

Later on, Jaime and Dr. Shustov stopped by. We asked about how soon Sou could be released. He said either Thursday or Friday they'll do the bone marrow biopsy again. If it came back negative for leukemia cells, we would be able to fly home.   Thursday or Friday was when Sou would be done with his IV antibiotics and hopefully will have a pain plan for his wound. If everything could be done and over with by then, that would be fantabulous. If there was still leukemia cells in the marrow, Sou would need to continue treatment. I asked them if he would be able to return to work normally because when we were in Anchorage, Dr. Liu mentioned that it would be hard to work afterwards. But this was before we knew the exact sub-type of AML that Sou had. Jaime said that Sou has the most favorable sub-type and he should be able to pick up life where he left off. That was good news. I remembered to ask about the butt cheek. They threw on some gloves and pressed on the cheek here and there. Dr. Shustov said they would have the surgeons stop by today and look at it because they didn't want any "set backs". They left the room and off to sleep Sou went. 

For lunch, Sou had fruit while I had some of the sushi from downstairs. I decided to try it because they always run out by the end of the day. It was alright. I may eat it again. I had the smoke salmon with cream cheese. Then one of the surgeons stopped by after lunch. He looked at Sou's "firm" butt cheek and said it was inflammation around the cavity of the wound. At around 4pm, Sou got some oxycodone instead of fentany and took a shower. The pain doctors decided to take Sou off the fentanyl to see how the dressing changes went. When he was done, he needed his dressing re-packed. They wanted me to give it a try. I've seen them do it a million times. I put on regular gloves and the nurse helped me get all the supplies together. She saw the regular gloves on my hands and said with her filipino accent, "Oh no honey, sterile, must be sterile glubs." I never saw any of the surgeons use sterile gloves before. But whatever. She also got a sterile cloth to put under Sou's butt. I slowly tugged on the piece of gauze in his wound. He began to whine and moan like usual. There was some resistance but I just pulled a little bit harder. There wasn't as much gauze in there like before. His wound was significantly smaller than before. After he got a "breather" I told Sou I was going to start packing in the gauze. Occasionally I would say, "Okay, deep breath in," as I pushed the gauze in. He made louder moans and the nurse put in an order for the fentanyl lollipops for tomorrow. In the end, Sou said it wasn't too bad. 

For dinner, Sou was craving a chicken burger. I went downstairs to the Cafe Plaza and grabbed two chicken burgers, one with fries and one with onion rings. I also got Sou a coke. He wanted some ice cream so I grabbed two drumstick ice cream cones. It was interesting to see the people look at my tray as I walked back up to his room. Yea, like I was gonna eat two of everything! Sou inhaled the burger before I could get two bites in. It was relieving to see him eat more. In the past few days he felt like eating only fruit. After dinner, Sou took another nap while I went upstairs to the family room to take a shower and do a load of laundry. While upstairs I managed to get more reading done. My mom called and said she would pick me up to do a store run. We were low on shampoo and body wash. On the way back, we made a stop at McDonald's to get Sou a snack. I got him one of those cheeseburger mini-meals that was only $3. I had a bacon ranch salad. We ate the fast food while watching Defiance and Bolt (one of the movies Mark burnt us). After those two movies, Sou still felt like watching another. It was already midnight and I was tired. I put on Lost instead because it was in episodes. About 15 minutes into the first episode we shut it off and went to bed.