Well, I made it to another day, but it didn't go as expected. I got here and I was in the computer as being expected, but somehow, I hadn't been added to the chemo schedule so they had to call in a nurse four hours early to be in the room with me during the densitization.
I got to the hospital at about 10 am or so, but since they weren't expecting me for chemo, the pharmacy didn't have everything that was needed so we had to wait until 1pm before they could get me started. Everything went as expected during the first half of the treatment and it was ok through the first bag of the carboplatin. About 2/3 way through the second bag of carbo, I started itching and I showed it to the nurse that was with me. About 5 minutes later she decided to turn it off. She had the other chemo nurse come in so she could call the doctor for instructions. The other nurse started the procedures for handling the reaction (more benedryl and steroid). Less than an hour later the reaction was gone, but the word came back from the doctor that there would be no more carbo given ever. If I reacted to 5.66 mg of it, there was no way to use it at all.
I talked to the doctor this morning when she came through and she didn't know if I would be allowed to continue on the study since the carbo was part of it, but if they try to kick me off of it she was going to talk to them to try to convince them that since I had received it 4/6 of my treatments that not having it for the last one shouldn't affect the study results. Even if they don't continue me, she is still considering keeping me on the avistan because it showed good results on studies for first time occurrences and the purpose of this study was to see if it helps on recurrences. I really do hope that they let me continue!
I just got my discharge papers and finished my lunch so now I just need to pack up this machine and get ready to go home.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
June 7 Update
I thought things were a bit strange over the last week or so. Over the weekend following the last chemo session, I slept almost the entire day. I didn't eat or drink much so I became extremely dehydrated. I went in on Wednesday last week to get my labs drawn and mentioned to them I was feeling a bit light-headed. I got a call from the nurse the next day telling me that I was "dry". They told me to come into Ellis on Friday to receive some IV fluids to rehydrate me. I got one liter of fluids and had planned to wait until the results came back before I left in case I needed more. After almost an hour, the nurse said that I didn't need to worry about it and she de-accessed the port and sent me home.
About 15 minutes after my brother dropped me off, I got a call from the nurse in my doctor's office telling me that I needed to go to women's and children's hospital to get a blood transfusion. If it had been earlier in the day, I might have been able to get it done at Ellis, but since it was already after 3pm, there was no way it could be done there. I left a message for my brother to come back and get me and the fun all began again. He had just got home from dropping me off (he lives 10 miles from me) so he had to come back out and get me and drive me back into town. He dropped me off at the hospital around 4:30 and I went into the check-in desk and they had no information on why I was there so they told me to go wait until they got my information. They finally got me checked in about 5pm.
After doing the paperwork, they sent for someone to wheel me up to my assigned room. Because they had already de-accessed my port, it meant that they had to stick me again in order to even draw blood to do they type and cross-match so I was given the choice of doing the stick with numbing (which would have delayed everything by an hour) or doing it without so they could get started right away. I went ahead and did it without because I had already been delayed this long. It really didn't hurt as bad as it had been the last several times that they had done it without the cold spray, but the hospital didn't use the cold spray. Oh well...
Once they got the blood drawn, they hooked me up to another liter of fluid that they put in twice as fast as they put the first one in at Ellis. After an hour, they hooked up another bag that they had running all night. Around 8pm the hooked up the first pint of blood and about 2 hours later they hooked up the second. All the blood was in by midnight and I was actually allowed to sleep until they came and drew blood from my port for labs. I think as far as sleeping in a hospital, that was the best night sleep I had ever had since they didn't need to keep poking me every time they needed blood or something.
I went home around noon on Saturday, but I still didn't feel totally great. I'm still afraid to drive the car because there are still times I feel light-headed. I just hope that things start getting better or I may need to move closer to town sooner than I had hoped to. More to come later!
About 15 minutes after my brother dropped me off, I got a call from the nurse in my doctor's office telling me that I needed to go to women's and children's hospital to get a blood transfusion. If it had been earlier in the day, I might have been able to get it done at Ellis, but since it was already after 3pm, there was no way it could be done there. I left a message for my brother to come back and get me and the fun all began again. He had just got home from dropping me off (he lives 10 miles from me) so he had to come back out and get me and drive me back into town. He dropped me off at the hospital around 4:30 and I went into the check-in desk and they had no information on why I was there so they told me to go wait until they got my information. They finally got me checked in about 5pm.
After doing the paperwork, they sent for someone to wheel me up to my assigned room. Because they had already de-accessed my port, it meant that they had to stick me again in order to even draw blood to do they type and cross-match so I was given the choice of doing the stick with numbing (which would have delayed everything by an hour) or doing it without so they could get started right away. I went ahead and did it without because I had already been delayed this long. It really didn't hurt as bad as it had been the last several times that they had done it without the cold spray, but the hospital didn't use the cold spray. Oh well...
Once they got the blood drawn, they hooked me up to another liter of fluid that they put in twice as fast as they put the first one in at Ellis. After an hour, they hooked up another bag that they had running all night. Around 8pm the hooked up the first pint of blood and about 2 hours later they hooked up the second. All the blood was in by midnight and I was actually allowed to sleep until they came and drew blood from my port for labs. I think as far as sleeping in a hospital, that was the best night sleep I had ever had since they didn't need to keep poking me every time they needed blood or something.
I went home around noon on Saturday, but I still didn't feel totally great. I'm still afraid to drive the car because there are still times I feel light-headed. I just hope that things start getting better or I may need to move closer to town sooner than I had hoped to. More to come later!
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