So Evelyn has chemo every Tuesday at CHLA. Every third treatment is a heavier two drug treatment. The other 2 we go to the infusion center for. Basically the infusion center simply pushes chemo. They draw her blood for labs thru her picc, they change her dressing, push her chemo and send us on our way. That all told is about a five hour day on 2 east.
Every third is not only a two drug day but also the day we meet with her oncologist. This is much different. We go to Outpatient tower 5, sign in, and wait. Then they take us to another waiting room then they take us back to the curtained area. They draw her blood for labs and we wait. Once the blood comes back they order her chemo and we wait. While waiting, we go across the way and wait for her oncologist, who is amazingly punctual, thank you Dr. Tran. Then we go back and they infuse the Zofran and we wait. Then they push the chemo and we wait. They hep flush her picc, then they change the dressing and we are then done. It's a different experience for sure. It's fine, we don't complain but glad that that is our one third.
Pushing the chemo is not traumatic. I saline and heparin flush her picc every day so she is used to that. The bad part of this deal is the dressing change. She has a tegaderm dressing over her picc line to keep it sterile and under that dressing, which is quite large, her skin is agitated. It can't breathe and often gets raw. Part of the dressing change is to clean the area thoroughly with an alcohol swab. This is the worst few minutes of our week every week. Although--- last week was a vast improvement over ever before and the makes me happpy. The skin had healed somewhat. We had the perfect Strawberry shortcake baking game on the ipad to distract and there was minimal screaming. How sad that I call this a victory. But it was. I will post pics from last week next.
Every third is not only a two drug day but also the day we meet with her oncologist. This is much different. We go to Outpatient tower 5, sign in, and wait. Then they take us to another waiting room then they take us back to the curtained area. They draw her blood for labs and we wait. Once the blood comes back they order her chemo and we wait. While waiting, we go across the way and wait for her oncologist, who is amazingly punctual, thank you Dr. Tran. Then we go back and they infuse the Zofran and we wait. Then they push the chemo and we wait. They hep flush her picc, then they change the dressing and we are then done. It's a different experience for sure. It's fine, we don't complain but glad that that is our one third.
Pushing the chemo is not traumatic. I saline and heparin flush her picc every day so she is used to that. The bad part of this deal is the dressing change. She has a tegaderm dressing over her picc line to keep it sterile and under that dressing, which is quite large, her skin is agitated. It can't breathe and often gets raw. Part of the dressing change is to clean the area thoroughly with an alcohol swab. This is the worst few minutes of our week every week. Although--- last week was a vast improvement over ever before and the makes me happpy. The skin had healed somewhat. We had the perfect Strawberry shortcake baking game on the ipad to distract and there was minimal screaming. How sad that I call this a victory. But it was. I will post pics from last week next.
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