Rollercoaster ride begins...

    After I got my room all nicely set up how I liked it on D6 and made friends with all the nurses they moved me out of there. I had to go back to the ICU. I developed a blood infection from the PICC line that was inserted in my arm. It had to be removed. They put a new one in my right arm.
    Since my immune system was so low, the doctors wanted me to be on the ICU floor to be constantly monitored. My immune system was so vulnerable that I could basically pick up any infection that I came in contact with. They were right. I also picked up pneumonia in addition to the blood infection. Back on the respirator I go. It wasn't that I was unable to breathe on my own, they just wanted to assist my breathing so my body wouldn't have to work as hard. I needed all my energy to battle these 2 infections...oh yah, and the cancer too.
    I must have looked like some sort of robot. I had a tube coming out of my throat, tube coming out of my nose, tubes coming out of my arm, and a catheter. I basically had to lay there and do nothing, I had tubes to do all the work for me. Tube to breathe for me, tube to eat for me, tube to pee for me, tube to fight my cancer for me.

    The next few of my Mom's journal entries are kind of scattered so a few days are missing. I guess her mind was a little preoccupied elsewhere. I've tried to piece it together as best as I could.

    In my last post I had said that Dr.Seftal stated there was a remote chance that I may have leukemia in my brain and spinal fluid as well, my central nervous system (CNS). He wanted to be proactive and started me on another type of chemo treatment for the type of cancer that he sensed (Acute Myeloid Leukemia aka AML). He also started this treatment because the APL cancer that I already had can attack weak areas and the doctors did not want it to attack my existing brain bleeds. 
   The results of my last MRI came back. There was a slight abnormality noted, the doctors said this may be an artifact as a result of movement but they wanted to do further testing to further investigate.
    On August 18th my vitals were stable enough for me to have my first lumbar puncture, also known as a spinal tap. Once again I will spare the details and give a brief overview. Basically you stick a needle in between the vertebrae of your lower back and draw out some spinal fluid. That is the simplified version and it still gives me shivers. The doctors were doing this to get a biopsy of my spinal fluid to send it away for lab analysis, looking for what Dr.Seftal suspected. This procedure was also done to measure the pressure in my head.
    Following the lumbar puncture you are supposed to lay completely flat and not move for 4 and a half hours. This is done because it needs to completely seal which was a difficult task since my platelets were so low. The last thing the doctors wanted was for me to start leaking spinal fluid on top of the cancer, pneumonia and blood infection. At the 2 hour mark I began to vomit profusely again. It is difficult to lay flat on your back when you are vomiting. Luckily I did not leak any spinal fluid which is a bonus! The vomiting would continue until we got the preliminary results back from the lumbar puncture.