The bad place

I haven't written in a while. I've been feeling pretty terrible. A few things happened at about the same time that left me mostly confined to my bed. My hemorrhoid came back, and then it clotted. It was excruciating, and I started taking Percocet. I stopped getting out of bed except to use the bathroom because it was too painful to walk. Maybe that's why I didn't notice that I had a new infection in my blood. Some sort of resistant klebsiella bacteria. The infectious disease team seemed kind of excited that they had to order in the antibiotics from somewhere else because it had only been approved this year and they hadn't had a chance to use it yet. I would tell you the name but it's really long and I can't pronounce or even spell it. Then they got really excited when they said that if this bacteria mutates again, they'll have to use an antibiotic that was only approved two weeks ago and hasn't yet been used in the state of Colorado, or probably at any VA in the country.

Around the same time, I had a CT scan of my abdomen, and they found an infection in my colon called typhlitis. I guess it's something that only happens when you don't have white blood cells. The bacteria infiltrate the wall of the colon, then start to spew out into the peritoneum. The medicine team told me that up until ten years ago, no one knew what typhlitis was, and about half of everyone who got it died. For a few days I had the surgery team coming to visit to make sure I didn't need emergency abdominal surgery. They would have to take out a piece of my colon and give me a colostomy bag. I think they said that would be temporary until I was well enough to have the intestines put back together. Either way, they really didn't want to operate on me, since my platelet count was in the single digits. They didn't even want to operate on my hemorrhoid, which to me was still a bigger issue. Or at least a more painful issue. I guess the only up side of having a colostomy bag would be not having to worry about my hemorrhoid as much. I don't think that makes it worth it, though. Seriously who wants a colostomy bag?

At some point in all of that mess, I started having nausea. I'm lucky I didn't have to deal with that much during my first two rounds of chemo, but I guess I'm paying for it now. The one good thing is that all the anti-nausea meds I take knock me out. So I can sleep most of the day and not have to deal with hemorrhoids, infections, or nausea.

I kept my family away for a little while because I don't like having visitors when I'm really sick. But when they did start visiting again they brought me all kinds of things I might be able to eat, and they don't mind moving my table a few inches closer to the bed when I can't reach it. If I don't respond to any messages for a while, it's because I'm too nauseous or asleep or can't move. So I'm sorry in advance and/or in arrears.