Day 3 of 10 - September 30, 2010

I couldn't fall asleep last night and around midnight Pete got up, drenched in sweat. He went to change his t-shirt and when he did I got up and felt his bed sheets. They were soaked, both top and bottom, as were the pillowcases. I took all the bedclothes off and had him get into my bed (there are 2 twin beds in the room). I walked down to the laundry room (there's one on every floor, free) but it is locked between 8:30 PM and 8:30 AM. The best I could do was to hang the pillow cases and his shirt in the closet (thank goodness there were some hangers with clips!), one sheet was suspended between the corners of the closet doors and the other thrown over the shower door.

There's a chair with a ottoman in the corner, so I grabbed a dry pillow and a small throw blanket that was on the chair and played solitaire on my cell phone to after 3. I put the mattress pad, which was now fairly dry, back on the bed and fell asleep there. Pete continued to sweat, but not to the extent that he had earlier. I was really concerned about dehydration because of the profuse sweating and also because he really hadn't been drinking his water, so I tried to periodically wake him and get him to drink but I wasn't very successful.

I had gotten up and showered a little after 5 and finally woke him around 8. He showered and we went to the kitchen, which is directly across the hall from our door, and he had a banana for breakfast. I kept trying to get him to decide how we were going to get back to Beth Israel - bus, subway or cab - but he finally said that we'd walk. It wasn't raining at the time and I really think that he should be doing some physical activity so we left the Lodge around 9. We walked at a slow but steady pace and arrived at 9:30. That walk really wiped Pete out, he was sweating and his shirt was drenched.

It may not have been a bad idea to walk because when D tried for the blood return, which she hadn't had any success with either of the past 2 days, the blood just poured out. When we told her that we had walked here she said that would account for his slightly elevated blood pressure and may actually have helped get a good blood return.

His iv is almost finished. A had stopped by earlier with concerns about another significant weight loss, though she didn't say exactly how much. Pete was asleep so I told her about his night sweats and the fact that he hadn't drunk as much as I felt he should. She said that they would be sending him home with a bolus of iv fluid, just as they had during the last round.

I'm not sure how we'll be getting back to Hope Lodge this afternoon. It will be up to Pete to decide.