Thursday, June 15, 2006

Hopefully, knock wood, pray pray, Last Chemo

Little Warrior is waving goodbye to the Teletubbies and softly saying, "Ba-ba!"

It's just to effing cute.

So, today's the day. (Hopefully) Last Chemo (knock wood) (please, God).

Her appointment is at 1:15. Here's how it works:

Get to Clinic. Sign in. Go sit down. Wait between 10 - 30 minutes. Get called back to sign forms. Go to Infusion area, sign in and sit down. Wait between 20 - 40 minutes. Get called back so that LW's port can be accessed and blood drawn. Hold breath and say prayers that there is blood return after sticking the needle in her. Loop up the tubes and securely bandage up her port site so she can't pull it out. Go back to the infusion waiting room. Wait about an hour while they examine her blood.

Get called back to see the doctor. Wait 30 minutes in the doctor's examining room, trying to keep LW from eating the ear-scope thingies or launching herself off the exam table. (Note to self: go charge up DVD player after this post.)

See doctor. Ask doctor list of questions. Realize that if doctor ever shows alarm, you're going to be really freaked out, because in all this, he's always acted quite laid-back. Nice man.

Go back to infusion area. Wait 30-60 minutes for the chemo to be prepared and nurse to bring it.

Get anti-nausea drug in port. Then a saline flush. Then Vincristine. Then Dactinomycin. The Zofran (nausea) is put on about a 7 minute drip, but the actual chemo just goes in with a push. Boom, boom. Saline flush. Heparin push.

Stop at the Candlelighter's Desk on the way out to see if there are any parking validations left. At $10 a visit, very valuable.

And there's our day. Oh, mixed in that is something very important:

Walk around with Little Warrior in the sling. Get oohs and aahs from all the nurses. Be told over and over that she's the prettiest baby in the world. Watch adults begin talking baby talk.

Long day? Yep. Any complaints? Nope. The fact that we live where we can get this, the fact the we have the resources to do so ... no complaints here.

Tonight, we'll be celebrating. "Going Off Treatment." Granted, "last chemo" has a better ring to it, but The Husband and I can't quite cross that superstition line.

2 comments:

Tiffanie said...

She IS a beautiful girl. I love the slings too, I got one from the LaLeche League when I was nursing. The are great.

Boobless Brigade Master said...

Yay for "Going off chemo"!
And double yay for only having to deal with that yucky Heparin crap for a once a month flush until it's out!
I remember at my first chemo treatment, they flushed my port, took my blood and then I had to wait as usual for the results. I laid in my chair and already had a nasty taste in my mouth and felt sick to my stomach. My cousin that was with me, chided me and told me thay it was all in my head...that they hadn't even given me any medicine or chemo yet. I thought she was right until a few months later when I ended up in the hospital and they used my port for my IV and flushed it with Heparin of course...at which time I had that nasty taste and felt instantly sick and the nurse saw my sour looking face and made the comment, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry about the Heparin, I should have given you a tic-tac or something to suck on so you didn't have to taste that nasty stuff!"
I felt so vindicated! And now I never go anywhere without tic-tacs in my purse!