Thursday, July 3, 2008

It Begins

Today is the first day of the next round of chemotherapy that will last the rest of the summer. It is also a "hungry day" for Katie. I told her that last night and I didn't get much of a reaction out of her so I'm wondering what she will be like this morning when she wakes up and I tell her she can't eat. So far I'm feeling pretty lucky. The last few days she has been up before 7am, but it is currently almost 8am and she and her brother are both still sleeping. I will have to get her up soon though to give her a sugary drink of some kind before 8:30. That is the cut off time for any liquids and if she doesn't get something sugary into her before that time we are going to have low sugar problems again this morning.

We are at Art and Kathy's house this morning. We came down yesterday afternoon and spent the night here to make this morning's treatment a little bit easier. We also went to the movies last night to see the new Pixar film, Wall-e. It was great and the kids loved it. At the end, Katie was dancing in the aisle. We then came back to Art and Kathy's for dinner and a good night's sleep. It is nice to have family this close to the treatment center.

Today's treatments will include an echo cardiogram to get some data on how her heart is functioning in a healthy state before they begin giving her doses of doxorubicin (a cardio-toxin), a lumbar puncture for methotraxate (which includes sedation so she doesn't wiggle with a needle in her spine), and a drug coctail through her port after she recovers from the sedation which will include the vincristine, the doxorubicin, and our old friend dexamethazone (steroid). When all is said and done, she should be feeling fine at the end of the day, but her days are now numbered. I expect that she will have a few more days of feeling fine before she really starts feeling the effects of the drugs.

No comments: