This next phase of Isabelle's treatment she has to be hospitalized. Since the last week of June, she has been going to the hospital every other week for about a week at a time to get treatment.
This Monday Isabelle had a procedure scheduled at 1030 am. I was about 2 miles from the clinic when I got pulled over and given a ticket for having windows that were tinted too dark. What the officer said she could "do for me" was drop all the charges if I corrected the problem by the time I was scheduled to go to court. I will still have to pay court fees that will probably be higher than the ticket anyway so it won't be worth it. On top of that I don't have time for it. I don't understand why they wouldn't tell us during our VA safety inspection that our tints were illegal. A warning would have been nice, but it was the start to a crappy day.
Isabelle's procedure did not start until 12:20. The procedure went horribly. The doctor could not get the needle into her spine because her body was too tense. To top it off, Isabelle felt it and was screaming her head off. The doctor gave her more of her "sleepy" meds, but it didn't seem to help. The nurse also curled Isabelle's knees into her chest to try to help make her back relax so that the doctor could get the needle in. She must have stuck her about 7 different times and they changed needles. I had to help hold Isabelles arms down, so that she couldn't touch her back and contaminate it. Finally they got the chemo in her spine, with what seemed like hours but only was about 10 minutes. She screamed and cried for about 20 minutes after the procedure was over, but did not seem to remember any of it once she recovered.
After her horrid procedure she recieved an IV drip of medicine that prevents prophylaxis. After her drip she then had a reaction to it and started itching everywhere. They gave her benedryl to counteract the reaction and she did well with it. Then she received VinChristine through an IV push. When we were done with that we headed over to the hospital to be admitted. She didn't get her high dose meth. chemo started until almost midnight.
The way the high dose methatrexate works is Isabelle has to be prehydrated for about 6 hours. Then she gets this chemo for 24 hours. After the 24 hours is up she is then given more fluids. She is not allowed to leave until she has less than .1 % of chemo in her blood. This can take up to a week for her body to clear it. She has been averaging about 4-5 days to clear the chemo.
7/26/2011 - Isabelle has had extreme back pain all day. At one point when I put her on the potty, she could not even hold herself up. It was very complicated trying to wipe her/pull up her clothes while she couldn't even stand. She has been getting tylenol and codeine between it to help control the pain. She has had pain due to the procedure that she had yesterday. It was nice that the art therapist came by today to do some crafts with Isabelle while she was in bed. Abel came by this evening and is staying the night with her on his 2 days off, so I can be home with the new baby. They are going to test Isabelles blood at midnight to see where her chemo levels are after it is done running.
