Jerry Update on Wednesday

My goodness!  JUST when you think everything is back to almost normal, something else goes wrong.  Jerry and I went home to Kingston Sunday afternoon, as you know.  I worked at our store all day Monday getting caught up and Jerry worked at the home office.  Tuesday, Jerry had to go the The Skin Clinic for the thousandth time to get some places frozen on his face and his head.  The doctor sliced a chunk off his arm to see if a new bump was something to be concerned about.

After that, we went to our insurance agent's office to sign new policies for our two homes and 4 vehicles as Hanover decided to move out of Oklahoma and cancelled all of our policies with them.  We wanted Earth Quake insurance since we seem to having several a week these days, but it seems most insurance companies have decided Oklahoma is too risky and they won't issue it.  Traveler's was the only one, so that is who we went with.

Yesterday afternoon, Jerry went back to work in his office at home, and I started cleaning the house.  Unfortunately, I didn't get anywhere NEAR finishing it.  I fixed dinner, as usual, and called Jerry into eat it.  I made Talapia with a breadcrumb topping, spinach, rice and a salad.  Jerry really liked it and told me several times how good it was and what a good cook I am.  That is QUITE UNUSUAL for him.  Seems like I just blogged recently about the same thing.  Maybe my cooking is getting better in my old age!

We went up to the movie room where we watched some very interesting episodes regarding the building of the Bible College in Colorado Springs by Andrew Wommack.  Then we went to bed, just like always.

At 2 AM, I woke up.  No big deal.  I do that a lot.  I reached over to touch Jerry.  I do that a lot too.  I was shocked to find that HE WASN'T THERE!  With all that is going on in his body, I just panicked.  I hollered his name.

Jerry?

Jerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry??

I walked out into the living room near his office and hollered again.  Jerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry????

No answer.

I finally climbed upstairs in the dark.  I can see pretty good in the dark with just the moonlight coming in and nightlights here and there.  I called his name again, and he weakly answered me.  He was in one of the recliners.  He told me he had woken up at 10 and at midnight in a lot of pain.  He had taken 2 Tylenol, and asked me to go get him 4 MORE.  I thought that sounded like an awful lot of Tylenol, but he is a Pharmacist and I figured he wouldn't overdose himself.

I've heard several doctors ask him recently about how much pain he had.  On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it?  So I asked him.  On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain.  He said, "TEN!"

It was 2:30 AM by now.  We were 150 miles away from his doctors or the hospital they would use.  I didn't know WHAT to do.  Jerry hates it when I get all panicky, so I tried to be calm.  I offered to go down and pack up the car and the cats and drive the 150 miles to the hospital.

He said, "Absolutely not!  Just go back to bed, Joy."

I went back downstairs, but OF COURSE I could not sleep.  I tossed and I turned and I prayed and I wondered what I should do.  At 4 AM, I went back upstairs to check on him.  He was sleeping peacefully in the recliner.  I decided I could give myself permission to go back to sleep.

This morning, Jerry was up before I was.  He had my coffee ready when he came in to wake me up, and he said very calmly that he was still in a lot of pain, and we needed to get to the hospital.  I took a very fast shower, packed up the food that needed to be taken, grabbed all the other things we have to have, packed up the two cats, and off we went.

I called the doctor first thing when I woke up.  ACTUALLY, I called the doctor at 2:30 in the morning and left a message so he would call me first thing this morning, but he didn't.  Shane, from the doctor's office, called me back about 30 minutes later.  He told me the doctor wanted Jerry to come right in.  I told him we were 150 miles away.  He said, "Get him here as soon as you can."

I drove 80 MPH most of the way.  We are fortunate to have highway almost the entire way there.  My daughter met me outside the doctor's building where I handed our two cats over to her.  She was supposed to take them to our Edmond home, but she just took them home to her house so we won't have to worry about them.  That was SO HELPFUL!  She took those cats all the way back to her house -- 20 miles -- and then she came back to the hospital where Jerry had been admitted, and she brought me some lunch.  She stayed with me the rest of the day until 7 tonight when we both left with the doctor's permission.

Here's the scoop on Jerry:

They did another Cat Scan on him to see if something had ruptured or was bleeding.  Evidently, it had not and was not.

They took blood from Jerry and are running tests.  He is running a 100.4 temp and has been for days.  The nurse could not get an IV in him.  A specialist nurse had to be called in and he had to do an Ultrasound to find a vein to put the IV in.  Jerry had 3 bandages on his arm where veins had been stuck but blew out -- or some such terminology.  I felt so sorry for him having all those pokes!  The special nurse who knew Tammy, our daughter who is also a nurse and works at the OK Heart Hospital next door, was able to get some other kind of IV into Jerry's upper arm after a few shots of some numbing stuff.

Before Tammy and I left, BOTH the cancer doctor -- Dr. Keefer -- and the surgeon -- Dr. Ellis -- came in to see Jerry.  Poor Dr. Ellis had been in surgery for EIGHT HOURS today.  He was going to do surgery on Jerry TONIGHT, if necessary.  My goodness!!!  No wonder the guy isn't very jovial.

The Cat Scan didn't show anything worse than what we already knew was going on inside Jerry.  Dr. Ellis really wants to WAIT for the next biopsy BECAUSE, if they can find out that Jerry has Lymphoma, he won't have to lose his Spleen even though it is in such bad shape right now.  Chemo can kill the lesions in his spleen, and it may not have to be removed.  ALSO, there are some immunizations that you need to have several weeks BEFORE you have your spleen out.  That is IF you have the luxury of having several weeks before.

Jerry is still in the hospital, and he was allowed to have dinner tonight.  He was so hungry after no food or water since last night JUST IN CASE.  The nurse gave him some Morphine for pain, and he was feeling pretty good when Tammy and I left.  He was giving me orders as to what all I need to bring him in the morning.  I am resting in the knowledge that he is already at the hospital if anything should happen, and I will sleep well tonight.  Tomorrow or Friday, he will have another bone marrow biopsy done.

Thank God for good doctors.  I'm going to overlook the fact that Dr. Ellis' staff never has called me back, and the fact that his nurse is very unfriendly.  Someone told Tammy that Dr. Ellis is very hard to get to know, but once you do, you really like him.  EVERYONE says he is the BEST spleen surgeon, and we certainly want that, no matter WHAT his personality is!  He was actually very nice tonight.  I was blown away that he even came in to see Jerry at all after being in surgery all day long.  That means a LOT!

Jerry and I are believing that something GOOD is going to come out of all of this, and we will have another wonderful example of how good God is to talk about in the future.

Right now, I'm getting in my jammies, and I'm going to bed.

Hugs, Joy