| Update 4 (J) Today is treatment day. Well ... this is actually the day we go to the clinic for chemo. Treatment day really starts the day before. Sis has small veins and getting blood draws and starting IVs has become more challenging. Chemo nurses take pride in being able to "get blood out of a gnats knees". When these nurses can't get the blood to flow one has to find solutions. When they've jabbed that needle in the third time trying to get blood you think, "There's got to be something we can do about this". We've learned It's very important that she be fully hydrated. It makes the veins more "spongy" as one nurse described it. So, the day before treatment Sis' job is to drink plenty of water. It's not as easy as you might think. Today we have a new wrinkle we're adding to hydration. We noticed during a recent magnesium infusion when a nurse couldn't find a vein that she had theses little heat packs that she used to warm up Sis' arm in order to find a good vein. We have a couple of those herbal wrap thingy's that you put in the microwave to warm up and lay around your neck and shoulders to get warm. We're gonna wrap Sis' arms with 'em. I've decided to start drinking my own coffee so I'm clanging around with the coffemaker in the kitchen at 5 AM. It never sounded so loud before. Sis is up by 6 and we're out the door by 6:30. Our appointment with Dr. Johnson is for 8 AM. We need to get a blood draw before we see him so he can read the counts. It takes about an hour to get the results so we're shooting at getting there by 7-7:15, and allow for whatever traffic we might encounter. Sis' arms are all wrapped up in those warmer thingyy's and she's drinking more water as we drive in. When we get there we get a good parking spot. It's early. Sis checks in at the blood draw station and I head off to find more water. She favors Dasani and I get some out of a machine at the Children's Hospital. When I get back she's already in "Victoria's house" as Sis calls it. She's Sis's favorite for blood draws. She's always able to get blood when no one else can. It seems the hydration and arm warming have paid off. Victoria says the blood is "flowing like water". This is very exciting news! Once the blood is drawn we wait to see the "doc". There's always a certain amount of waiting that goes on. Sis eventually begins to start walking a little imaginary "course" through the waiting room. She's become quite the walking aficionado. "Gotta keep it moving" she always says. We eventually get called to the back. We work our way through the preliminaries ... blood pressure, temperature, weight, etc... Then we see the "doc". Today he tells us about when he was on chemo and how sensitive to temperature changes he was. Sis has experienced the same thing. She gets cold and "shivery". I asked the Doc to characterize the results of treatment so far. "Better than expected", he said. He was about to say more but had to take a call. All of the blood counts and levels looked good, which means no additional infusions, and we're off to treatment. Once we make our way over to the chemo treatment area we get Sis' arms wrapped up in the warmer thingys. The IV goes well and the blood draw went well. Treatment starts with a blood draw and an ECG. Then they start her on what they call "pre-meds". This takes at least an hour. When the ECG's are done they use a special portable machine. They have to hook Sis up to a harness and plug in all these leads, record her heart, and send it over the phone to some other location. This has on occasion been a trial. The machine seems to be very picky about this whole thing and we have had to attempt the transmission of the data over the phone a number of times to get it to work. Today it's working really well. While this is going on Sis is receiving drugs to keep her from getting sick. Once that's all done they give her another pill to help with nausea. Then she gets the first bag of chemo. It's infused over a period of 4 hours. While all this is going on I'm hunting food for Sis. The "pre-meds" which include steroids from the day before make her hungry. She likes soup, but it has to be a certain kind. It must have noodles in it. She especially likes the chicken noodle soup from the cafeteria in the hospital. Today they didn't have any soup she likes, but when I got back she'd already had some cheesecake somebody brought her. She said it was good and I should try some, but all that was left was the crust. She likes to eat the top off of stuff like that. Once Sis got settled in I got her set up with the iPod. We have mp3's of our favorite preachers and we listen to them non-stop. After about an hour it was time for another ECG and blood draw. We had heated up the warmer thingys and had Sis' arm good and warm and all went well. I was off to Subway for a sandwich. When I got back Norma was there for the final ECG. Norma is the RN who's in charge of the treatment study. She does a fabulous job. She had a lot of pictures from her recent trip to St Thomas. The ECG went well and we were all marveling. Norma mentioned that the only difference between today and all the times before was that she was dialing in the results on a different phone line. Then it was time for the final blood draw. This time the blood would not flow. We decided to wait and try again. Sis and I realized we hadn't warmed her arm up. I warmed up the thingy in the microwave and we got it on her arm. When the nurse showed up for the blood draw the blood was flowing like water again. Thank you GOD! We had our sandwich and some chips. We pulled out our Bibles and read for a while. After a bit a girl showed up with more cheesecake. Sis had some more. Then it was time for a new chemo bag. This one only took about an hour, and we were out of there. We got home about 4 this afternoon. |
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