Day +4: Visitor Day!!!

Today is visitor day and Shirley will be arriving around 10:30am with many treats! New clothes, home-made food from the cousins, Thai takeout for dinner and of course her lovely self. 😍

At the 6am vitals check I ask the nurse if she’d get me some towels as I’d like to have a shower. Her response was “Sure, we’ll get a nurse to help you with that a little later this morning”. There may come a day in my life when that will happen. This is not that day!

In fairness they are still a little excited about yesterdays major dizziness / flopping on the bed episode, ancient history. ” In hospital lingo, fainting:”- Added by editor:)

Around 7am I’m in the bathroom, feeling pretty good and I notice some towels on a chair. I think I’ll start with washing my hair in the sink and see how that goes. No problem! The shower stall is right there, complete with a special chair that of course allows you to sit and still wash you “private” parts. 😜 The things you take for granted you so appreciate when you haven’t been able to, for even a short while! I enjoyed letting the hot water pour over me for quite a long time, I didn’t want to get out. But of course I did, with no dizziness, had a shave, got dressed and was totally presentable when my sweetheart arrived.

About that “special chair” in the shower. As I’m sitting there enjoying the nice hot water I suddenly remember the torture scene in the James Bond 2006 Casino Royale. My chair is sort of like that, except I’m not being tortured.

Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever, I’ll be sad to see him go. Can’t wait to see “No Time to Die” if they ever let it out of the can. Release date has been pushed back again until October 8, 2021.

Shortly after Shirley arrives and unpacks all the treats and show me all my new clothes, the nurse informs us that it’s moving day and I’m getting a new room! I was in a two bed room and they needed the space for two people which wasn’t going to happen because I am in isolation because of my cold. So Shirley flips all my stuff onto the bed, and they wheel the bed, the night table loaded with other stuff and my monitoring machine to a private single room with a south west view of downtown Toronto and Lake Ontario. And the internet is faster. The wi-if access point is right in the middle of my room. I’ve seen up to 45Mbps which I think is pretty good for a hospital.

Sometimes it pays to have a little cold.

I know you’ve been waiting for it. Not enough detailed medical info right? This is for you! This morning the Doctor dropped in and said because of the length of time I’ve had a fever (38°C and over, as high as 103F for those who wonder what that is) and probably some other things, my inflammatory markers in my blood work are getting to be an “issue”. As a result she says I’ll be getting Tocilizumab, again a standard thing to deal with the CRS from the CAR-T. The doctor also casually mentions that a single dose is $2,000 which is no big deal at Princess Margaret. Cancer drugs are expensive. Thanks to the marvels of these drugs, a few hours later my temperature is 37.4°C, no more fever.

Interestingly, it’s also used to treat COVID!