A late start to Steve’s 3rd Chemo Treatment
Today was Steve’s 3rd Chemo Treatment. It’s crazy how fast the last 6 weeks have gone by since we first found out he had cancer.
Last time there was no issue with the port and the IV went right in with no problems. This week we had a problem again. Not getting the IV in, but getting the blood to flow out of the IV. You see, when they put a port in, sometimes your body realizes this foreign object is in there and doesn’t like it. So it sort of forms like a blood clot so nothing will flow. I’m not sure of the exact terms they use but basically it blocks it. When this happens you can get stuff into the IV, like saline but not out. If they can’t get a blood return out of the IV, then they can’t put the chemo through because it won’t go anywhere.
When this happens they can put in a med that will basically dissolve the “clot”. But it’s a waiting game on how long it’ll take to work and how many times they have to put the meds in before it actually works. Every 30 minutes they try it again to see if it’s broken through. It finally worked after the 3rd try so after being there for 3 hours, our 5 hour chemo began.
It was the first time in a long time I actually put in an 8 hour day. My back is killing me! LOL (from sitting there all day, I know!)
Steve was upset, but only because that meant we’d be there longer and he was going to miss a conference all he was trying to have at 4pm. This would put us there until 5. But it is what it is and having having such great news yesterday, we just brushed it off.
The nurses there really are so nice that we don’t actually mind being there, but we really don’t want to spend all day there either.
While sitting there today, we talked about a bunch of things. It was a good time to catch up on some stuff. One thing was, Steve forgot to tell me that yesterday his primary care physician called him to tell him how happy she was that his CEA number went down so much. She thought that was great! And it was. We also were talking about a few symptoms that we notice are gone now after just 2 treatments.
- Night sweats. Steve has had night sweats for years. I don’t even know when they began. While his body is still warm at night, he’s not sweating anymore – at least not on his head. His pillow used to be soaked first thing in the morning. But it hasn’t been, which is great.;
- His constant cough. Steve has had a dry cough for years. Again, I can’t even tell you how long he’s had it. He didn’t even realize that it was so constant until I brought it to his attention the night of 6/2/14 in the ER. And for the most part, it seems to be gone. Which is also great.