Winter Vacation at Duke

Those were the words out of Joe's mouth about 5 minutes ago as we wait for a room to become available. Today he started experiencing stomach pain, fever & nausea.  We called over to both radiology (he had his radiation treatment this morning) and to oncology and they asked for him to come in so they could do some blood work.  We arrived around 2pm, did the blood work and found out his white blood cell count is extremely elevated suggesting some type of infection.  They are admitting him to Duke for 48-72 hours to observe and get some antiobiotics into him.  Right now we are sitting in an exam room in radiology waiting for a room assignment...fun, fun.   Will post more as soon as we know something else.

9:00pm   We got Joe in the room around 6pm (room 9328 Duke North), he was quickly served his dinner and put in the bed.  I went home to retrieve all his necessities and returned.  By then Bill & Sandy were up in the room keeping him company.  His nausea is quite extreme at this point.  His nurse, Mark, is awaiting the doctor to start an IV so he can get some fluids and nausea meds in him.  Other than that he is very tired, so I'm sure he will be asleep before long.  I've camped out my space in the corner.   ***Funny Thing***  His bed kept going up and down, all by itself, he was gettting so worried that it would continue all night until I discovered that since he is so tall, his feet were hanging over the end of the bed on the controls.  If he will just keep his feet under the cover, the ghost in the machine should leave the bed alone!  Well this will be all for me tonight.  Thank you to everyone for all your warm wishes and prayers.