January 21, 2017
Den and I are up early this morning. Yesterday was a very long day and we didn’t get home from the hospital until late in the evening. But we have Den’s first appointment at the Infusion Center, so let’s get this day started.
Our appointment is at 8:30AM, so we are out of the house before 8AM. This means I need to wake Den up around 6:30AM, so he has time to get dressed, weight himself, change his batteries and fill in his log book for the day.
We checked in at the desk and they put a wristband on Den with his record/order number on it. Computers are wonderful….aren’t they?! The lady at the desk told us to have a seat in the waiting area and someone would call for us in just a few minutes. She was right! About 2 minutes later, Den’s name was called and we were on our way to his first out-patient IV therapy session.
This was the first time either one of us had been to an infusion center, so we both tried to remember as much as possible for tomorrow. Den would need to go for the IV therapy everyday for 6 weeks. The nurse was very nice and told me that as long as the center was not overly busy, I could sit in one of the chairs next to him.
Once Den’s antibiotic came from central supply (thru the pneumatic tube system), the nurse got his IV going and let us know that it would take about an hour for the IV antibiotic to be run into his system. So we had time to read, play games and watch some TV.
Today is Saturday, so I don’t need to go to work today…thank goodness. Today would give me a good indicator of what time I would be able to get to work in the mornings. I had texted my boss last night when I got home and let them know what was going on and that I would call or stop in today to figure out what I could do about timing if there was a problem getting to work on time.
While the IV was running, the nurse asked what time we wanted to come during the week (the center is only open in the mornings on the weekend). We told her that Den was doing the cardiac rehab in the mornings. She suggested that we try to schedule for 12:30PM. This way Den could come to the infusion center after his rehab work out and he would have plenty of time to get from one end of the building to the other. For right now, we would stay at 8AM (when the center opens) so I could get to work on time or at least close to it.
All in all, it took about an hour and a half to complete Den’s therapy. So we were home before 11AM. The rest of the day was ours and we made the most of it with phone calls and housework. A week away from home and there is a lot to catch up on with the cleaning and laundry.
Den's LVAD 