One chemo treatement down, forty-one to go!

We survived Stella's first chemo treatment!  It was a really long day, but I was extremely impressed with how well Stella did overall.  

Stella and I left the house around 10 a.m. to head to the clinic in Reno.  We feel very lucky that Children's Hospital Oakland operates a clinic in Reno and we are able to do her chemo there.  Although we like the bay area, traveling to Oakland once a week for over a year would get old really fast.  Thankfully we only have to travel to Reno.  

Stella has a prescription for a numbing cream (Lidocain and Prilocaine) that I am supposed to put on her skin in the area that covers her port an hour before we arrive.  The cream makes her skin numb so that she is not in pain when they insert the needle into her port.  Once we arrived at the clinic, I discovered that I put the cream on incorrectly.  I rubbed a little bit into the skin like a lotion.  Apparently I was supposed to place a huge glob on top of the skin and then place a big bandage over it.  Oops.  So, we had to reapply the cream and wait an hour before we could start treatment. 

Once Stella was numb, they had to hook into the port.  (If you are wondering what the port is and/or does, here is a good explanation: http://lookingforcure.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103:use-of-port-a-cath&catid=42:chemotherapy&Itemid=55).  That was not a fun process. Basically, two nurses and I held Stella down while she screamed bloody murder and a nurse tried to stick an inch long needle into Stella's port.  Once that was clipped in, they then had to take three or four viles of blood.  Stella screamed the entire time through this process and tried to pull out the line from her port.  After the blood was drawn, we were able to put her shirt on over the line and she calmed down.  I don't think she is actually in pain, but the process is just really scary for her given all she has been through.

Stella has to have blood drawn through her port every week before her chemo treatment.  The lab work is done very quickly to get certain counts that I don't really understand yet (but I will soon know all about, I am sure).  If certain counts are too low she cannot get chemo that week.  The counts also give an indication of how high or low her immune system is.  We are obviously going to have to keep a close eye on those numbers. 

Stella was then hooked up to an IV drip and she and I hung out for next 4 hours.  She has about 5 feet of slack on her IV line, so she can move around a little bit.  She did terrific through that process and did not fuss or cry at all.  She and I watched Super Why and Barney on my iPad (thank goodness they have wireless Internet access. . .), played with all of the fun items in her special treasure box, played games, snacked, and basically just passed the time doing whatever she wanted.  She really only started to get restless the last half hour we were there.  She flipped out again when the nurse took out the line to her port, but got over it pretty quickly.

The treatment takes 4 hours total - the first hour is her anti-nausea medication and some liquids, the second hour or so is the actual chemo drugs, and after that she has two hours of liquids to flush everything through her system. It is a long process, but Stella handled it well.  She was pretty exhausted by the time we left and she napped the whole way home. 

So far no nausea or other side effects.  From what I understand, those can take a few days to kick in, or may only kick in after several treatments.  We will just take it a day at a time and see what happens. 

**1:45 a.m. update. Well, Stella's nausea has kicked in.  Just spent the last hour cleaning up throw up.  Got her all cleaned up and changed her sheets, then put her back to bed.  She promptly threw up a second time.  Did it all again and kept her out of bed for a little while to make sure she felt better. . .crossing my fingers that is the extent of it for tonight. **

Below are a few pictures of our day. . .

 

 

 Stella spent a lot of time on my lap watching shows and playing Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (a current favorite). I tried to hide the IV line under her blanket and pillow so she wouldn't pull on it. The nurse has decided that Stella should name her doggie pillow Vinny, after the chemo drug Vincristine. . . I'm not so sure about that.

 She spent lots of time exploring this fun box of goodies. 

We "played" some games while waiting for her numbing cream to kick in. . . this picture shows how I should have applied it before leaving home.  :-)  I'll get it right next time.