Finally a holiday was coming up. Pie, turkey, parades on TV. I hadn’t been back to work since the end of October. It still felt like a holiday. Decompress a little with all that has been going on. When I finished the chemotherapy last week. They mentioned that there is a possibility I could get diarrhea. “When? What should I expect?”. The response was if it happens it is usually 7 days after chemotherapy. Well the Tuesday after chemotherapy I had diarrhea. Ok not too bad. The next day again, and again the next day. All this time and before the diagnosis I was losing weight, and every time I would stand up really fast I felt like I would pass out. I would grab a wall, or something to steady myself until it passed. I figured it was the blood pressure medication the PCP prescribed as a prophylaxis treatment for the diabetes. I didn’t have high blood pressure.
Toward the end of Thanksgiving week we called the oncologist and asked about the diarrhea. “If it doesn’t stop after a couple days, head to the ER at Methodist”. It didn’t stop. So in the evening we head to the hospital. Blood draws, a CT scan of the abdomen and some waiting.
“You have colitis. I am going to admit you.”
Well we didn’t make 30 days post hospitalization readmission. What does that mean? It is a quality metric hospitals are “graded on” to determine if they are effectively treating patients.
This time the hospital stay was better. No ICU monitoring. I was on a different floor. The nurses seemed “better”. I wasn’t stuck in the bed. I could roam the floor if I feel I needed to. The doctor also wanted a stool sample, and I was pretty plugged up after a prescription strength antidiarrhea medication.
I had the same overnight nurse every night. I can’t remember her name, but she reminded me of Susan, a nurse I worked with in the past. Susan was determined to get that stool sample. We tried all kinds of things, Diet Coke, brownies and black coffee, fruit, oatmeal. Eventually, Sunday evening we got the sample.
While in the hospital I wasn’t given any new medications, just fluids. After the weekend I was release from the hospital. I learned from the previous stay, when you are going home every therapist will want to visit you before you leave. I wanted to pack up, take a shower, go to the bathroom and get out of there. I did have a few visits. A walk around the ward. Another therapist, another walk around the ward. Eventually I escaped.
I stopped the blood pressure medication. I discovered I had been dehydrated for quite some time. The dehydration was causing the low blood pressure, the low blood pressure was causing the nearly fainting episodes. After this stay I had not had the nearly fainting spells.
I made a change to my diet, and it was a good one. I added oatmeal for breakfast. I started having steel cut oats every morning. After a few mishaps and burning the oats trying to cook them on the stove top I figured out a way to cook them in the Instant Pot that was very easy and didn’t require any monitoring. Here it is, very simple. Add your oats, salt, your milk or water, I reduced the liquid about by a half cup from what it says on the carton. Set the instant pot to 2 hours on slow cooker. When finished package and place in the refrigerator. In the morning scope out a portion and microwave for about a minute. Add fresh fruit like apples or bananas, or I like to also add freeze dried strawberries and blue berries, and dried cherries. Just a few, just enough to sweeten the oatmeal a bit.
