It was a hell of a day. It started off pretty good and hopefully ends well but the in-between was not fun. Today was the day Alex had his porta-cath put in at Marian Hospital. It would serve a dual purpose, to protect his veins from one of the chemo drugs that can be harmful to his veins and to try and save him some pokes from blood draws, IV's, etc. We lost count after 40 pokes while he was at Loma Linda and frankly, he's done being poked. He left the hospital with both hands covered in bruises from them trying to access him there. The scar tissue is building up on his left arm, and his right arm has 'rollers' making it an incredibly hard stick. Today proved all those things true and cemented the need for a porta-cath. They had a hard time finding a vein for a blood draw and a harder time getting an IV started.
He was scheduled to go into the Cath Lab at 12pm, due to a delay they finally took him back around 1:45pm. We were told it would take about 1 hour to do the procedure. We got a call at 2:40 telling us the doctor had been called out to an emergency before they got started and were just beginning the procedure. We cringed every time we heard the doctors name paged over the speaker with an 8100 code (whatever that is?); we just knew it was another delay.
Around 3:30pm they called to say Alex was finished and would be back in his cubicle in a few minutes. We walked back to find him throwing up violently, which had never happened before; he and sedation meds had always had a good relationship, that ended today. He was throwing up so hard he wasn't breathing for a few seconds; scared the daylights out of us. We found out from the nurse that she had to give him a large amount of sedation to keep him comfortable. He'd relax then his eyes would pop open and she'd give him more. Now he's afraid to take Fentanyl but we'll deal with that later. The guy doesn't forget a thing, believe me, he'll remember this when they want to sedate him again.
Did I forget to mention the fire alarm after he had finally stopped throwing up and drifted off to sleep? What else was going to happen? I was afraid to ask.
We rarely see Alex like he was today and it was disheartening; today was hard for him and it was hard to watch.
And I was mad, I was mad that God was not protecting my son from all this. It was bad enough that he didn't protect him from the cancer but this? I haven't given up on God but I don't trust him right now. I don't trust him to protect my son. I don't trust him not to tear my heart out again. I don't trust him to push me beyond what I can endure. I don't trust him to heal Alex. And I don't know what to do with all that.
Our conversation today wasn't me demurely pleading and asking for help, it was me demanding to know where He was? He can tell the devil to leave us alone, He could protect Alex, He could even make all this go away.....where was He? Hasn't Alex been through enough? Hasn't our family suffered enough?
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