Homemade food fight

Vlad still feeling normal. Cough is the same. Still taking Hycodan 10ccs as needed. Also has another cough drug. They'll be taking him off the potassium and the prednisone today. And we're just a couple of hours away from saying bye-bye to the Ara-C, the 24-7 chemo drug. His white cells were at 800 this morning. Conlon says they jump around (yesterday morning they were 600). BP this morning was 133/74; blood sugar 334 (!), and temp 96.3.

Nurse LaVorne said not to eat anymore homemade food. Because his blood sugar was so high, they need to keep closer tabs. The more Vlad thought about this, the more upset he got. After all, he doesn't eat half the food they serve him. Like sugar-free cake, the rolls, the bagels. And what our friends bring are homemade soups made with things like organic chicken. Everything's legal and even better than hospital food, if I may be so bold. I told him it's just that they need to keep strict records of what he eats. That did nothing to placate. In his culture, you take food to the hospital. Over there, food is not part of what hospitals do. So it's deep in his genes. But with glucose numbers like 330, it's making it hard to make a case for him. I think the nurses assume he's eating candy and potato chips, which he wouldn't eat on a good day.

He was so upset that I called the Nurse Navigator, Marcela. She said we could talk to Conlon in the AM and he would most likely make an exception under the circumstances. She made a note in the chart. About a half-hour later, LaVorne came in and said we have a new nurse, Terrye, because several patients checked out and they had to even out the load. But I wondered if she didn't like what we did and dumped us. I'm clueless really. I called Marcela for advice, not to steamroll over LaVorne, if that's what happened. I'm probably paranoid. We really like LaVorne. Oh well.

The blood sugar was "down" to 270 before lunch. He got 6 units of insulin from Nurse Terrye.

Conlon told Vlad to expect a sore throat and diarrhea. I'm anxious about how Vlad will feel when they pull out the chemo. Will he suddenly feel bad? We have been so lucky that he hasn't had any side effects to speak of so far. Say a prayer.