Fire Alarms and Urban Wildlife

Richmond has been a pretty exciting place since I left the hospital on Sunday afternoon.  I finished up my last chemo dose and then headed off to the Hospitality House (HH) a few blocks down Marshall Street to start my recovery.  The HH is an old hotel that has been renovated and is run as a non-profit place for out-of-town patients and families to stay.  As you can imagine, it stays pretty full and there is a demand for the rooms.  But they have a separate floor for cancer transplant patients where we have our room.  It is a community type affair and we have met several other families going thru a similar madness.  It is comforting to be around others who know what it is like and appreciate a good bald head.

Sunday afternoon my sister came up to visit and helped get us settled into the room.  I was feeling pretty good and we snuck out to get pizza....at a restaurant in Shockoe Bottom. I can't believe that mom allowed such a thing but my counts were actually decent when we left the hospital.  It was nice to be out for some fresh air, although I missed being with Brant on Father's Day.

On Monday we headed to the outpatient clinic to check my blood counts and get a Neulasta shot (speeds up my white blood cell recovery).  I was having issues with being light headed and weak, but managed to get around the hospital ok.  My neutrophils dropped below 1.0 so I could no longer claim "but I'm not neutropenic...!".  My platelets and Hemoglobin are still hanging tough so no transfusions and it was back to the HH for the afternoon and evening.

We have a large bird that perches on the roof top nearby.  We think it is a she and that she has a nest in the vent stack where she stays.  She is very entertaining to watch from the front window of our room.  I tried to take a picture but there is not much resolution.  Anyone out there think they know what it is?  I am thinking some sort of hawk or falcon.  She is very light colored and seems to have a white ring around her neck/chest.

But the big excitement started early this morning when we were awakened by a fire alarm....that was REALLY quite loud in a hotel room.  After a few minutes to get oriented and grab meds, phones, shoes, etc.., we headed down the five flights of stairs and to a park across the street.  Thank goodness it wasn't raining yet.  Turns out a lampshade had caught on fire in a room but it didn't spread.  It took a while to get back up to the room and by the time I arrived on the 5th floor I was feeling like I would pass out.  So I sat down on the radiator and sure enough....was gone.  Luckily mom kept me from hitting the floor and got me back to the room.  She wanted to take me to the ER right away but I made her wait until clinic opened at 8am....who proceeded to tell me to go to the ER....

I guess we are just trying to get our money's worth while we are here and want to check out all of the medical facilities offered by VCU.  The ER staff was great and said I am just dehydrated from the chemo and no longer being on IV fluids.  My blood counts were good and my neutrophils popped back up over 1.0 again - yeah.  So I sat around half the day in the ER getting a big bag of saline and some potassium pills.  Then they moved me over to the "Observation Unit" for another bag of saline.  I don't think there was a whole lot of observation that really went on there, but nonetheless, I got what I needed and am now safely back at HH for a good night's rest.  We are hoping for no fire alarms tonight and we will stock up on Gatorade tomorrow!!