Chemo treatment #4 down - 15 more to go & Kidney U/S

Two words. Long. Day.

Isaac had two appointments today. Ultrasound at 9:30 a.m., and chemo at 11:30 a.m.

I dropped of Sheldon at school at 7:30 a.m. (Izabella was sick, so she stayed at home with Nannie and her Auntie Lissa), then myself and Isaac hopped on the 91 freeway.

We had to be in the Radiology unit - second floor - by 9:00 a.m. to check in. I got up to the receptionist, and she proceeds to ask me if I went down to the first floor to register first. Umm, no. No one told me that I had to go down there and register. I kindly explained that 1.) I would rather not take my immunosuppressed child up and down, here and there to each floor, when all you can hear in the waiting room is coughing and sniffing, and 2.) we are in insolation. She agreed, and called up someone from registration to come to us. Thank you! She sat us at a nice little desk - away from all the sickies. Registration man comes, we are registered. They ever so kindly put us in front of all other waiting patients and we are called in shortly after.

My little man was GREAT during the whole procedure. She got an awesome scan of his kidney.

We finished up pretty quick and we were out of there by 9:40 a.m., with nearly 2 hours to burn. Yeah. 2 hours. We picked up some brekkie/lunch, and drove across the street to the OPI clinic, where we sat in the car and waited. And waited. Isaac thought it was the funniest thing to grab my straw and yank it out while flinging lemonade all over the car in the process. You didn't notice how much he flung everywhere because it was dark in the parking structure, but when we left and got out into daylight - oh my gosh - there is stickiness everywhere.. even on the dashboard and windshield! Have no fear, we will have Daddy clean it.


By 11:15 a.m., I was done being in that car as much as Isaac was...


so we went in the clinic a tad early. We get our "Hi, Isaac!" but this time, the nurse says, "meet you in room (closet) 17. Do you know the code?" Me - "no". "Oh! It's 1-2-3-4-5". Wow, we qualified to find out our closet secret code! Yippie skippie!

Vitals:
Blood pressure - 101/59 (yeah!)
Weight - 10.21 kg (up from last week!)

Nurse Sabrina is back around 12:00 p.m. and sets up a 15-minute 4 mg Zofran drip.

Mary, the NP, comes in at 12:45 p.m. and chats with us for a bit. The scoop on the poop. The poop was negative for all 3 cultures. Most likely the diarrhea is chemotherapy-induced.

Chemotherapy tends to kill fast-growing cells. The cells in your hair, the cells in your bone marrow that make your blood, and the cells that line your intestines are among the most rapidly growing cells in your body. Therefore the typical side effects of chemotherapy include hair loss, decreased blood counts and damage to your intestinal lining. If your chemotherapy causes sufficient damage to the lining of your intestine, diarrhea may result.

She asks about his stools, and I let her know that they are still pretty watery. She puts in an order for him to receive 100 ml's of fluid before his chemo transfusion. This fluid was pushed through over a 1 hr time frame. Fun times. Isaac screamed. The. Whole. Time. He was so tired by this point. Tired of being in the closet, tired of being held, tired because he was so off his routine and was waaaaay late for his nap. Keep in mind, we left the house at 7:20 a.m., and we arrive in the OPI at 11:15 a.m., and our appointment was at 11:30 a.m., and Mary did not come in until after 12:40 p.m.



Fluids are finally pushed through, and nurse S is back with chemo V & A. When she removes the line in his port, she notices there is a little discharge, a.k.a. puss on the outer edge of the access point. Greeeeeeeaat. She advises us to keep a very close watch on him AND his port, watching for any signs of infection and for a fever.

In the end, we are out of there at 2:30 p.m. and do not arrive back home until after 3:30 p.m.

You wanna hear some good news? His ultrasound report came back STAT and his remaining right kidney is functioning PERFECTLY!!