Day 6--Not So Fun

Today was rough. As today's nurse Sarah said, they pretty much ran cultures of everything. Torger's having intestinal problems and is starting to get a lesion on his tongue, despite his constant mouth rinsing. He got a bloody nose mid-day, so they did a catscan of his sinuses, and just when he was starting to feel a little bit better, they came in with the largest hypodermic needle we'd ever seen and drew a full ounce of blood out with it. Then they took two more hypos of blood, just to be on the safe side. After that, Torger felt really weak all day and slept a lot. He had five or six bags of fluid and medication hanging from his pole all day, along with all the pills they were giving him orally and one shot that he's been getting daily. They switched him to a new antifungal drug as part of trying to keep all of his symptoms under control. Eating is becoming a problem because nothing tastes or feels good to him. We laughed this summer when Ilsa sent a note reminding us that at least hospitals have excellent Jello. Little did we know! Our hospital uses off-brands of a lot of things, so instead of Rice Krispies they serve "Rice Crunchin's" and instead of actual Jello, they serve "Gel Treat." Now, I'm not a huge Jello fan myself, but I can tell just by looking that Gel Treat is no Jello. So I went out and got Torger some actual store-bought Jello, and he was able to eat one of those and a small container of applesauce. But that was about it for the whole day. The nurse was going to bring in some Ensure before he falls asleep tonight to see if he can get that down. We're hoping tomorrow will be a little easier, but we're prepared for it to stay rough for awhile.