My husband was very, very sick with Myeloid Sarcoma, the doctor said chemo needed to start that night.
We got to 9PW and it all began before his very crisis situation got under control. As much as I knew he was very critical, it wasn't until that Monday night, three days later that I was told all his organs were shutting down. His kidneys were not functioning, his liver enzymes were through the roof and his heart rate was over 140.
The nurses and doctors rallied and did everything they needed to do. The renal doctor could not let chemo start until he had 3 hours of dialysis treatment. The doctor made it clear that chemo had to start that night due to the excessive rate of the growing mass.
L's nurse was Audrey Waechter. She jumped hoops and did whatever she needed to do to get that chemo started. She got in touch with the on-call doctor and got verbal consent from her with another nurse as a witness and my husband somehow signed the consent form. Chemo started at 1:17 am.
Audrey looked at me and said, "Ms. G, I got something accomplished tonight." With tears in my eyes, we high fived. The doctor said the chemo will work as fast as the mass was growing. If not for Audrey, I am not sure where we would have been today.
L was a different person on Tuesday. Although at that time he was still very critical, they were still not sure of the damage to his kidneys (he continued to get dialysis all week), the official fight began when that chemo got started.
The whole time L was there, when Audrey was his nurse and when she wasn't his nurse, she always went above and beyond. We cannot thank her enough for all she did for him, and I am sure she does for all her patients.
At this point, L has been home for a week, the post PET scan result showed the Induction phase of the chemo was a success.
Through all this, it was Audrey who was the key to getting it all started.