Today

Ian had his third and last round of leukapheresis yesterday afternoon. Apparently things weren't exciting enough, so he decided to give everybody a scare. He had to get up to go the bathroom, so everyone left to give him privacy, and while he was doing his business he passed out. He hit his head pretty good and has a knot on it this morning. Its a good thing he's made a habit of falling on his head, so this didn't even phase it. Really the problem was that his blood pressure just got super low, it was 52/25 (normal is 120/80), so once he laid back down and they pumped him full of fluids he did okay. It certainly got everyone's attention though. The doctor, the PA, 3-4 nurses, and a few CNAs all came rushing in. I missed most of the action since I had gone home to shower and do laundry and stuff. I came in right after though.

While he's been here, Ian has had a bunch of tests to make sure that everything is working okay. He's had an EKG, an ultrasound of his heart, and an ultrasound of his abdomen, not to mention a billion blood draws. His spleen is enlarged, which is fairly normal with Leukemia apparently, but when they did the abdominal ultrasound to look at it, they noticed his right kidney was a little enlarged as well. He also has blood creatinine levels (which is an indicator of kidney function) that are a little high. They've been at 1.2 the whole time we've been here, and they're supposed to be below one. It's not really a big concern right now, but they're going to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get worse. Because of that he's supposed to have an abdominal CT scan today. It was originally supposed to be yesterday, but since he fainted, they put it off.

The good thing about being in the hospital in Salt Lake is that they hold church here. Its shortened a lot, with Sacrament only 30 minutes, no Sunday School, and Priesthood/Relief Society is only 30 minutes.

This is Ian icing his battle wound. On his chest you can see his central line. He uses it as an excuse to show off his chest. He says its because it doesn't work with his IVs if he closes his hospital gown, but I know what it really is. Last night his central line was bleeding a little bit, so they had to change the dressing at 3 in the morning. So fun.

This is the lovely (or not so much) recliner that I get to sleep in. It wouldn't be bad except I can't really sleep on my back because of the baby, and the top has a tendency to fold up every time I move. I keep threatening Ian that I'm going to take the bed.

This is taken from the door, so you can see that the room isn't terribly spacious. We do have a window at least, over on the other side of the chair. It faces east, so we have a good view of the mountains and all the hospitals at the U.

Lapse in my Education

Last night when I was lying awake after yet another interruption, I realized that there is one thing that I haven't done in the nursing program, and I think other nurses do either, that they really should. I think it should be a requirement to spend the night in the hospital with all of the interruptions that a patient would have. Obviously, the nurses have to come in and do things in the night, but if they'd actually done it themselves they might do things a little differently. For example, they have to test Ian's urine everytime he goes (which is a lot thanks to a med he's on). Usually the CNA does it, but the nurses have been doing it too sometimes. Anyway, last night one of Ian's IVs ran out while he was in the bathroom. So when the nurse came in to start the new IV bag we told her that he had gone to the bathroom. She just said she would tell the CNA. Its not really a big deal, but it would have been nicer if she could have just done the 2 second test herself instead of creating another interruption 20 minutes later. That's all. Its hard to sleep when they have to keep coming in as it is, so less interruptions are definitely better.

Things are basically the same for Ian. They did the leukapherisis again yesterday morning, so his white blood cell count is coming down pretty fast. It was over 300,000 when we came in, 214,000 after the first round, and its 175,000 now, so that's definitely good news. He will be having it at least one more round today. The goal is to get it below 100,000.

Ian's been feeling just fine, and we've had friends and family come to visit which has been nice. Ian's parents came down from Washington yesterday and got here last night. So all four of us feel better now. Its nicer to have the extra support and I think they feel a lot better since they've seen him.

Leukemia

Ian was diagnosed with Leukemia yesterday, which has all been kind of sudden. Apparently for the last month or so, Ian has been having problems with his eyes where he loses his peripheral vision for about half an hour. He looked up his symptoms online and it said ocular migraines. After this had this happen on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday he called his brother-in-law who's an optometrist, who told him it probably was ocular migraines but he should go in and get it checked. So on Wednesday he went to another optometrist who found some retinal hemorrhaging. He told Ian he needed to get some blood tests and stuff because retinal hemorrhaging is usually associated with diabetes or high blood pressure or something like that. Ian went in to the BYU clinic later on Wednesday and the doctor didn't really find anything wrong, but told him to come back for some fasting blood tests. So Thursday morning Ian went in. They called him around noon and said his white blood count was over 200,000.
(Though apparently it was so high, their equipment couldn't accurately count it. It was really over 300,000.) They said that he needed to come up here to Salt Lake to LDS hospital right away. (The doctor told us that their oncology ward specializes in blood cancers like leukemia and they are the only ones in the Intermountain west that does.) So Ian came and got me from psych clinicals, told me what was going on, and we came up.

Ian hasn't been sick at all, so this was very unexpected. I didn't even know about his eyes being weird until Tuesday afternoon, and even then we weren't expecting anything too bad, not even really diabetes. Diabetes looks pretty good now though...

They still need to do more tests, but so far it looks like he has Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, they will be doing more tests to make sure, but the Doctor seemed optimistic. They told us that as far as leukemia goes, that is the best kind to get, and can usually be treated without chemo.

Ian had a central line put in yesterday and last night they did leukapheresis. Basically they have a line coming out of him taking out blood, then they put it through a centrifuge and take out as many WBCs as they could, and then put the blood back in. Ian got really nauseous from it yesterday, but when they did it this morning he did okay. They are planning on doing it at least one more time. He also had a bone marrow biopsy this afternoon, which is one of the main tests they will use to diagnose which kind of leukemia he has.

Ian is doing really well. Except for the leukapheresis and the biopsy, which were really unpleasant, he's been feeling okay, only sleepy. They have him on a medication that makes him have to pee a lot though, so he has to get up every half hour to an hour to go to the bathroom. The poor CNA has to come in every time and test it. Now that is an awesome job.

We probably won't have a definite diagnosis until Monday, but I'll try to keep this updated as things happen.

Thanksgiving

So we just got back from a trip to New Mexico for Thanksgiving. I of course brought my camera, but of course didn't really take pictures. I do have some pictures of my nieces though, and since they are super cute...
I also have some pictures that my three year old niece took of us, that are not necessarily recognizable.

 Here are the ones they took of us.

The lens was fogged up when she took my picture. The other one is almost good... It has the top of my head and not the top of Ian's.

We also had fun with Photo Booth on my computer.

Don't worry, that wasn't all we did. I had to help with a lot of the cooking, since my mom broke her ankle and can't put any weight on it. Ian mostly just messed around on the computer and read some. Don't worry though, he says he wasn't super bored.

Evening at the Ritz

Our stake put on a ball for adults, and since I'm on the activities committee, I got assigned to take pictures, prom style. One of our friends from the ward took some pictures of us.

Ian caught me by surprise... hence the frightful face.

Park City

Since we never really had a honeymoon, at the end of August we went to Park City for a few days to kind of make up for it.

The enormously overpriced french fries we had for dinner. We also had steaks, but the price wasn't anything shocking.

Beautifully attractive self portraits while waiting for buffalo burgers.

Ian....

Awesome license plate map of which I am a little jealous.

 We went to the Olympic park, which was very cool. I would recommend it. Sorry Ian's picture is blurry. He was going so fast, I couldn't get a clear shot.

Of course we had to play all of the games. That best of day score was Ian's by the way.

If you look really closely, you can see the ski jumper coming down. The second picture is what it looks like from the top.

Bobsled/Luge/Skeleton track. We could've gone down it, but decided against it.

I got to carry the Olympic torch. Ian refused, so obviously I had to make a face at him. He of course, had to take a picture of the face.

The signs show how far it is to every other Winter Olympic site.

On the trolley downtown.

Going up the mountain on the town lift.

One of those buildings is our hotel as seen from the lift.

Ian... for real.

Downtown as seen from the lift.

Sometimes you just have to just have to take pictures with random statuary.

On the last day there we figured out that the bus was free to downtown from our hotel. Wish we'd realized that before.

Our hotel.

Another random statue. This one was in our hotel room.

Slightly sunburned, but very happy. :)


Of course went to the Outlet Malls too, but pictures would probably be a little boring,

Interview in Iowa City

Ian has his first dental school interview this week. It will be at the University of Iowa on Wednesday. Please pray that he'll do well.