Round 6

Well, I just got out of the hospital yesterday—a nice, long, 5 night stay at M.D. Anderson. I’m getting used to these little overnight stays as I’m about to finish all my rounds, just in time…right? I can’t stress enough how important good nurses, doctors and nurses aids really are. I have had some of the best nurses at MDA. For example, there’s sweet little Stephanie, who never fails to come in and talk with me a bit. Not to mention Susan, Tricia, Sara (a fellow Baylor Bear), Sarah, etc. They all say that I’m their “favorite patient,” but I think the truth is that they all like to be my nurse because I’m not sick. You have to understand that there are A LOT of pretty sick people in the leukemia ward, remember, horrible immune responses. All the nurses know where I go to school, that my major is nursing, and they’ve met my entire family. They genuinely care about their patients as they always ask me if I had to be hospitalized in between rounds. I once had a doctor, Dr. Nguyen, sit on my bed with me for 20 minutes or so and give me a list of places I needed to visit in California. This is pretty unheard of—doctors have SO much to do. Then on the flip side, you have the food and the horribly annoying pole with all the IVs, chemo, etc. Okay, to give MDA a little credit, the food really isn’t so bad. Actually, at first, I liked it. However, the more and more you have to go into the hospital and eat the food there, the more you associate the food they serve you with sickness and not feeling well, and then before you know it you just start feeling nauseous at the thought of eating it. I honestly can’t even walk by the cafeteria anymore, I have to hold my breath because it makes me feel so yuck. This last stay, my grandparents came, and they and my mom brought me dinner and lunch almost everyday. For some reason (this happens quite a bit), I could only eat bean burritos from Taco Bell. Weird, I know. I went through this before with cheese and crackers, and I literally couldn’t eat anything but cheese and crackers. And the pole…oohhh the pole…named “Stan” by my family. They plug you into it as soon as you get in, and it doesn’t come out until you get discharged. I guess you just have to take the good in with the bad—good people, bad food. I think I can handle it.
Like I said earlier, my grandparents stayed in our apartment in Houston and came to the hospital during the day to visit. On Valentine’s Day, they came in with a three foot heart balloon, a cake, pizza, letters, and lotion. We had a little party. Then my friend Paige and her sister Holly came to visit, we totally took advantage young adult room—“Kim’s Place”—where there’s an arcade, pool table, free drinks and popcorn, a movie room, etc. Overall, I would say it was a pretty good 5-day stay. Minus the difficulty they had with my lumbar puncture, yet again (they had the same problem last round during my out-patient LP). As you can see, I know all the terms and lingo of the hospital scene. You kind of have to if you want to know what’s going on.
Well the good news is that I should be completely done with my chemo around mid-April. I’ll be going to Dallas in the beginning of June to take a month-long nursing course. My advisor suggested taking it early to “lighten the load” a little. It’s going to be weird to be living back at home for a month and a half. The last time I lived at home for that long was the summer after my high school graduation. I’m looking forward to it.

Please continue to pray for my family and me, that God would give us the strength to finish this out.