Friday the 20th-25th

Friday Abel took Isabelle to the clinic around 3. When he got there they told him that she needed a blood transfusion and that it was too late to get it done at the clinic. They were going to send her to the hospital to get it done, but when they called over the oncology unit was full and didn't have room. They sent him home and told him that we need to watch for signs of her "crashing" and they made an appointment to come back on Monday. They said if she showed symptoms or her blood dropping seemed to get worse to go ahead and bring her to the emergency room. (That in itself is a risk since her immune system is completely compromised right now.) Luckily she made it to Monday without any problems, but it was a scary thought to know that she needed a transfusion and they just didn't have room to accomodate us safely.

Monday- Isabelle's appointment was nice and early to get the blood transfusion. When they accessed her port she put up a fuss. I guess as good as shes been, shes decided that shes had enough. The blood transfusion too a couple hours and she made a friend at the clinic. (the little girl doesn't have cancer, she has a platelet disorder and only has to come once every 2 weeks) She had a lot of fun playing with the princess toys on the train table. The nurse's asked if we could go ahead and get the chemo, so we would only have to go to the clinic 4 times this week instead of 5. The doctor said that would be fine, which was great news to me. She then got her chemo and we were able to leave.


Tues-Wed. - All she had done was her chemo push and there was no throwing up, Yay!! She also insisted on going in her dress-up Rapunzel outfit. She even wore the slippers, which I had to put sandals over so she wouldn't get them dirty. Once we were there, we had to go around the whole place to show EVERYONE her outfit. If people did not look at her, she would grab their attention so that they could tell her how beautiful she looked. It was so cute. She took her sandals off in the clinic so she could show them off. 
She has a crush on this Asian man at the front counter named Jay. She is constantly flirting with him and she told him that he was sooooo handsome! It was so cute and funny. Of course everyone laughed and she kept saying it.

Quick clinic days 5/18-19

Past 2 days have been very hectic. Isabelle has been very sick the past couple days. Yesterday she threw up probably about 6-7 times, even with her medicine for nausia. She barely ate anything either. On the way to the clinic she threw up 3 different times where we had to pull over, change her clothes, and wipe her down. (We of course had to wear gloves and handle with care) When we arrived at the clinic it took longer than expected because we saw a nurse practitioner as well as the chemo. Isabelles weight has dropped again, but shes not the lowest that shes been, so they're not overly concerned. (They do want the nausia to stop though. ) She prescribed us 2 more medicines for nausia to try instead. One of them causes drowsiness which I'm not thrilled about since shes been very tired. She slept about 80% of yesterday, but she was also not feeling well. For her evening chemo she spit it all out, all over the place. Abel had to make more, we changed her clothes, linen, and wiped her down. (Had to wear gloves because of the toxicity) So exhausting.

Today Isabelle was worn out and did not eat much in the early day. After her first dose of her new nausia medicine, her appetite picked up. (this is the one of the 2 that doesn't cause drowsiness) When we went to the clinic, she threw up in the car, but she made it in the bag! Her chemo push actually went very quickly today, thank goodness! She did throw up the little bit of food she ate earlier in the day, but we left after only 20 minutes! We even beat traffic!! She ate a good sized dinner, which was nice too. Just when I thought the day was going well,  Abel went to give her the nightly chemo and she spit it out everywhere. So it was pretty much a repeat of the night before. So tired, but tomorrow is the last day of clinic chemo until Tuesday!! Hopefully this new nausia medicine will make my baby feel better.

5/17/2011

So Isabelle's appointment was today at 8:45 am today. We arrived they told us that she wasn't getting a procedure done today, they wrote it down wrong. The first chemo she received today was the cytoxin. Before she could get that she had to get an hour drip of IV fluids plus a "good" urine sample. Her cytoxin drip only took a half an hour, but its required that after the cytoxin, she needs 2-4 hours of after hydration. That is mainly because it is really hard on the bladder. Then she had to get her ARAC chemo in tube push. (thats the one that gave her the fevers) We were home by 4, which was nice and earlier than expected. She had a fun day at the clinic today playing with the nurses.

Isabelle has to get M6P for the next 2 weeks. (pill chemo) When Abel went to give it to her this evening she threw it up all over the place. He then had to get her another one and he had to put on his MOP gear pretty much to clean it up. Tomorrow and Thurs. her appts. are at 3 and its just a "quick" chemo push in her tube. Friday her appt. is at 2:30. She is basically getting her ARAC push and having her tube accessed.

5/10/2011 procedure

Isabelle's procedure was scheduled at 10:15 and did not get started until 12.  The good thing was everything went smoothly and she was ready to leave at 1:30. She is scheduled to start the 7 day a week chemo next week, (4 of the days we go to the clinic) but her ANC blood count will probably be too low and we will probably be delayed for a week or 2. Her ANC was 100 today, so shes back on all her restrictions as far as going out/eating. Her red blood count was also low, but the doctor said it should be going back up now. It was nice to have a quick day, but sucks that we are on restrictions again.
 Numbing cream on her back, getting ready for her procedure.
Waiting for the procedure to begin.

Procedure 5/3/2011

Well Isabelle's procedure was scheduled for 12 in the afternoon, so we woke her up at 4 am to eat and drink some milk. (No food 8 hours prior to procedure) Then at 7:30 she woke up and had some water. (No water 4 hours prior to a procedure) The good thing was she didn't start complaining about being hungry until 11 am. We arrived at the clinic right on time and they didn't even start her procedure until almost 2. I was very aggravated at how long it took for them to get started, our appointment was already late.

When they started the procedure, everything was going pretty well. Isabelle was actually sleepier than she has been in the past and seemed a lot more relaxed. The nurse was there to make sure Isabelle didn't move at all during the procedure. (Isabelle lays on her side as the doctor does the injections into her spine) Well out of no where. as the doctor sticks her in the back, Isabelle turns her upper body to look at her doctor. That didn't go very well seeing as that made the doctor pretty much stab her in the back. Isabelle immidiatly started screaming out in pain. The nurse had gained control again right away(she had let her guard down) and was like I'm so sorry Dr. I'm so sorry. I was really nervous and ran over to the table to comfort Isabelle. I was worried because it wasn't like a shot in the muscle or under the skin, we're talking about SPINE. Everything was fine, thank goodness, but I just kept thinking omg shes going to be paralyzed. The doctor tried to stick Isabelle again and she was still screaming. Dr. Chao had to stop and get a new needle because it apparently wasn't going in right (darn thing was probably dull). Then they finally got everything in ok and Isabelle started saying that what they were doing tickled her. (The were cleaning the site.) She luckily didn't remember any of the procedure.

20 minutes later she was eating and we moved to the play area. She also recieved a chemo that goes in an IV drip and it takes an hour. We then had to wait another hour after to make sure she didn't have any side effects from it. We did not leave the clinic until almost 5 and got home at 7 in the evening with traffic. It was such a long day. She has to come back Thursday for another blood transfusion and a platelet transfusion. Her white blood count is still pretty good. Hopefully she feels ok tomorrow and we can do something fun.

The first picture is the car ride to the clinic and the second picture is her waiting patiently for the doctor to come into the procedure room and do the procedure.
She was so hungry that she just wanted to look at her lunch and hold it, while waiting for the doctor.

 Still waiting for the doctor
 After the procedure getting her IV chemo while watching a movie on the portable dvd player that they have at the clinic. This is called the infusion area and there are lots of little cubbie type areas for all the patients.