How to visit someone in the hospital

It's almost always a good thing to visit your friend when they're in the hospital. If you're asking yourself, "Should I go visit or not?" just go ahead and do it! It's good for the patient and it's good for you, even if it means a stretch outside of your comfort zone. (On the other hand, if you barely know the patient, or you really don't want to visit, don't.)

Different hospital patients have different needs. Rest is usually one of them, so it's important for visits to be relaxing and enjoyable for the patient.

Before you go, there's nothing wrong with praying: "Lord, bless our time together. As we talk, open our eyes to ways we can encourage and help..." You are helping already by showing very tangibly that you care. Other needs may surface during your visit.

• Plan to keep your visit short. 30 minutes is usually plenty of time. If you find you're staying longer, suggest that you should leave and wait for the patient to insist that you stay longer. And if the conversation flags after 15 minutes, or the patient drops off to sleep, you don't have to stay the rest of the time.
• If you are a praying person, plan to pray with the patient. Tell them so early in the visit: "We just wanted to see how you were doing, let you know what's going on in the outside world and pray with you. Would that be alright?"
• Sample introductory lines when you arrive at the patient's room:
• Hey, how you feeling? 
• OK for us to visit with you for a few minutes? You're not feeling too tired, sick? You don't have a procedure coming up in the next few minutes? 
• Please don't feel like you have to entertain guests. If you need to rest, just let us know.
• Can we refill your water? get you a soda? (Nurses and techs do this, but sometimes they could use a hand.) Did you know they have popsicles here! and juices (orange, apple, etc).
• Scripture pictures/cards are lasting encouragement after you go. Bring scotch tape and see if you can find a place to put one up that's within the patient's range.
• A small number of snacks, both sweet and salty, help with munchies for the patient or their family. Single-serving size is best. mini rice cakes, pretzels, cheese&crackers, chips, cheetos. (Crumbs are bad.) If you do snacks, a small thing of handiwipes would also be helpful.
• If you see debris around, you can just throw it away: wrappers, tape, etc.
• If you go to the trouble of going to the patient's room, but they're asleep or out of the room for some reason, it's great to leave a note. Coordinate with the nurse about the best place to put it.
• If you have a chance to call ahead before your visit, ask if there's anything the patient wants/needs that you can bring by. A magazine? a DVD? handouts from last night's Bible study/business meeting? a newspaper? A forgotten item from home.

Too many suggestions for one post! It all boils down to this. Just go. Be natural. Be brief. Love your friend. That's what it's all about.

R-ICE chemotherapy

The first time I had chemo, they gave me R-CHOP. This time they're giving my R-ICE. It's an acronym for the medicines they use in the therapy. One nice thing about R-ICe is that none of the drugs are vessicants -- drugs that burn your veins.

The way they do this chemo varies from place to place. Here's how they are doing it for me. Unlike R-CHOP, R-ICE takes 3-4 days to administer each time.

Day 1: Rituximab / Rituxin - First, they gave me some IV Benadryl, which made me cough (ironic) and then made me very loopy. After 30 minutes, they started the Rituxin. Since I'd had it before as part of my previous chemo, they thought they could give it to me this time at a higher rate, but it gave me a very scratchy throat. They gave me another antihistamine and then really slowed down the Rituxin, so that it took well into the night for this to finish. The scratchy throat problem totally resolved.

Day 2 (today): Etoposide - Premeds for this are anti-vomiting drugs: Zofran and Decadrol. The etoposide will take about an hour to infuse.

Day 3 (tomorrow): Etoposide, Ifosfamide, Carboplatin

I'm getting a lot of Ifosfamide. It'll take ~24 hours to administer. Ifosfamide is given along with Mesna, which is a drug that specifically fights a side effect of Ifosfamide that irritates the bladder. Another interesting side effect that occurs about 20% of the time is CNS (central nervous system) effects. Namely, moodiness, confusion, hallucinations. This only about 3 days. If you see me acting more strangely than normal, let me know.

Carboplatin is a platinum-based drug. Studies have shown that carboplatin often has the side effect of causing some hearing loss in 10 to 15 years. They'll be watching my platelets as well. There's no such thing as a platelet booster drug, so if my platelets get too low,

Day 4 (Saturday): Etoposide. I should be home by lunch time.

Post-treatment: I don't know what the plan is yet. Could be Neulasta and Emend. I'll keep you posted.

Of course, I'm expecting all my hair to fall out in the next couple weeks. That's a side effect of all three drugs in ICE.

Parable of the Bratty Toddler

I know a bratty toddler. He can be sweet, but he's usually ungrateful, disobedient, wasteful, and thinks the world revolves around him. It pains me to be around him.

This episode really happened.
Dad: You better do what the boss [meaning Mom] says!
Boy: I am the boss!
Dad: No, you're not!
Me (to myself): Yes, he very clearly is. Dad saying his son's not the boss doesn't make it so.

If only those parents would realize that they've got to win in those head-to-head's with their son. Good news: "It's never too late to start doing what's right."

Now the parable part. Next time you see a brat, consider him a mirror of your own soul.

Bratty behavior makes people unlovely. It's bratty to celebrate Someone's birthday by refusing to say his name, but eating his food, drinking his wine, breathing his air, and going around with a sense of entitlement to more, more, more.

At Christmas time, God sent His Son to save brats. Not toddlers who are under-guided by their parents, but full-grown brats who think they've got it all figured out on their own without God, thank you very much.

But if I could see through my delusion, I'd marvel that, instead of the doom that every brat deserves, Christ came to offer me a new home. With Him. Because He loves me. Even though I'm unlovely.

"God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

Merry Christmas, fellow brats!

P.S. It's also bratty to resent it when someone presumes to correct me.