My Saga with Leukemia

Ups and Downs

With the chemo running 24/7 along with a large bag of what looked like water...but actually contained Potassium and other things to keep me well hydrated, sleeping at night was especially difficult. In part it was because one or the other of my IV lines would get kinked, or one of my bags would complete it's infusion and then the loud "beeping" of the machine would repeatedly alert me, in particular, that something was needed.

Dutifully, I would push the call button for the nurse to get the alarm to be quiet. While I will admit I should have left equipment issues for the nursing staff, after watching and learning what they did to straighten out a kinked line, known as an "occlusion"...I soon became adept at unkinking my own line and resetting the machine so it would continue dispensing it's bags of liquids. It served to save my sanity, as several times I had lain in my bed wide awake and irritated and watched the clock tick out two hours while the infernal beeping continued before a nurse finally made it to my room.

I had other issues with the IV pole as well. Being connected to it 24/7 until the final week of my month of treatments, meant "bonding" with it as it would be going literally everywhere that I went. Too frequently that meant coming to the bathroom with me! The first week was by far the worst. I had three IV lines attached to three bags on the pole. While I quickly learned how to get out of bed and wheel it along with me, what I didn't learn so fast was how to get the wheels from running over my IV lines, and how to turn the right way once I got into the bathroom to avoid getting entangled in my lines! Before the first week was over with, I had taken a hefty tumble in the bathroom after I lost my balance, resulting in a nasty bruise on my hip. With my immunities being so completely depleted at that point, and with barely any platelets to help clot my injuries, the bruising was worse than it would have been otherwise and it took weeks to heal.

Thankfully it wasn't until after I had better control of the pole that the nurses began giving me Lasix at night to increase my trips to the bathroom. Oh what fun!!!