Flat on my back

Saturday, walking the dog around the lake, I made it about 3/4 around and then felt like my feet couldn't go anymore. I was going to sit on a step but instead toppled back and fell on my back, banging my head on the cement and also landing hard on my wrist.

Some of the usual walkers at Mt Holyoke offered help; I asked if they could help help pull me up to seated, which they did. I called Joe, who is home, and he got me and the dog in the car. By the way, the dog behaved perfectly, sitting down beside me.

So once at home Joe said to call the doctor. I resisted. "Then I'll just spend the whole night in the emergency room." "Well, you know you should call." So I did, and the doctor said to go to the emergency room. We might as well have driven to Dana Farber, but I thought our local ER, at Baystate Medical Center, would be quicker, and then they would send me home. I pretty quickly got a bed, and the testing began. A cat-scan of the neck and x-ray of the hand proved normal, for starters.

Basically, because of the continuing dehydration, my potassium was high, my sodium was low and my kidneys were struggling. This all played into my weakness, plus the higher prednisone. Also it probably fed into my murky mental state.

They immediately put me on fluids and my levels started to normalize. I ended up getting a bed and staying up until about 4 a.m. because of one thing or another. They couldn't register me or find my paperwork in the ER. They noticed there was another admit a few floors away: Ronnie Gordon, and they checked to see if my files and stuck to hers. Nope. So they had to start at the beginninng. ARGH! I was tired.

Next morning I had a slightly strained discussion with a doctor about him talking to Dana-Farber. He said he hadn't called, didn't need to, but would put in a call when the testing was complete. He walked out, re-entered just as quickly, and said he had talked to Dana-Farber and I was going there by ambulance. Quick change.

The kids were total mensches. I said I could go alone, but Katie and Joe said I'd be lonely. So Katie rode in the ambulance with me and Joe followed behind with the car. Ben and Jim had been on the phone sharing their conviction that I should not stay at Baystate. Joe organized everything so well that I felt perfectly taken-care of and didn't have to worry about a thing. He also noticed that for the past several years it seems that just after coming home from college, one of the first things he's done is take me to the hospital. Says I must be allergic to him.

The Dana-Farber doctors (I saw a lot of them) said that Baystate did everything they would have done here. Still, they repeated every test.

Once here, I amused myself by trying to get the correct menu. Last night someone erroneously gave me the kidney menu, which was for patients a little worse than I. It had low sodium and low protein, both of which I need. I finally got a doctor who said he's sign off on the regular menu, then he disappeared. My night nurse came and disappeared into a patient's room to do chemo, which is their first priority. Also my saline drip, which is supposed to go constantly, was not connected. So, getting a little angry, I walked about into the hall. The nurse was sitting there. She said she'd take a break from the chemo to get me a menu. By the time that she gave it to me, the dining services was closed. I walked back out and said I really needed food. She and another nurse found a bagged tuna lunch in the fridge. So, naturally, I took it. Then the other nurse came in and hooked me up.

No big deal, I know. Just an example of life in the hospital. At some point in my many stays, I've usually had trouble getting the right food.

In any case, I'll probably be here for a couple of days, when hopefully Joe will be able to pick me up. In the meantime, here I sit at Brigham and Women's, where everyone knows my name.

Illness can make you super-sensitive

I decided that it was bad for my health to be on the computer late at night. It creates a buzz that makes it hard to sleep. It's difficult to put the computer away, because my new MacBook has a habit of following me around.

The other night, having succeeded in closing the computer, I reached for leftover sections of The New York Times and turned to Science Times from Tuesday. I should have just stayed in the blogosphere.

First I read a story about the wonders of blood. The writer, Natalie Angier, seemed to make light of the possibility of dying from blood disorders. I know I was being super-sensitive, but I got upset, and dashed off this letter to the Times:

"As a newspaper reporter myself (at a regional daily in Western Massachusetts) I understand the urge to write playfully about a serious or mundane topic that might seem dry otherwise. In her Basics piece about blood, Natalie Angier begins and ends with an attempt at humor that is upsetting for a blood cancer survivor like myself. I assume that anyone who has been treated for leukemia or lymphoma , or who is a hemophiliac, would react the same way if they read Angier's lead paragraph in which she writes that if you lose too much blood, "you must either get a transfusion or prepare to met your mortician," and her concluding line that, "Should a clot happen to cut off blood flow to a vital organ like the heart or brain, the only one playing the harp will be you." In the body of her story, she does a fine job describing the wonders of blood, about which I had already, unfortunately, learned way more than I ever needed to know when cancer afflicted mine. Angier should not have been flip when talking about the possibility of death faced by many with blood disorders."

At the paper, we often get complaints from people offended by one thing or another: short people, tall people, fat people, skinny people...we roll our eyes, saying you never know who you're going to offend next. I wonder if the Times editors are now rolling their eyes at me.

Next I turned to a piece about the new book by John Grogan, author of the book "Marley and Me." I had read "Marley and Me" in the hospital and really related to his story about a poorly-behaved, and lovable, labrador retriever. I was about half-way through reading about the new book when I came to the point where Grogan said he had been thinking about his father's death...from...leukemia. I didn't finish the story.

So much for a relaxing read before bed.

I get upset when I read about people dying from leukemia. Obviously I know it happens, but when it becomes personalized, it's extra-upsetting. It brings on the post-traumatic stress, big-time. I'm sure it happens to other people who've been through any number of things. Bang -- you read about it happening to someone else, and you feel more vulnerable.

My social worker, Mary Lou Hackett, had told me I'm not alone. When Susan Butcher, four time- Iditarod champion, died of leukemia in 2006 at age 51 (she relapsed post-transplant), I was hit especially hard. She said the news was on all the televisions in the Brigham and Women's Hospital floor where patients were being treated for leukemia, and the nurses told the patients to turn the TVs off.

Even writing that sets me off.

So what are you supposed to do? Try not to get "hijacked." Allow yourself to feel sad about what happened to someone else, and then try to remember that it did not (and hopefully will not) happen to you.

And then, go do something else.