Off we went to hospital as positively as usual and wondering what these early morning or late night trips would be like as winter sets in . Never a dull moment in the car as my dear wife bubbles away non - stop but thats her way of dealing with nerves { by her own admission} . Me , I tend to go quiete until of course I have to deal with things at the hospital , and man did we have to this morning !
Much to our surprise the fantastic Sharon was on duty in another ward this morning and another very young and seemingly inexperienced nurse was allocated to our treatment , this was problem number 1 - when she tried to flush clean the catheter before the routine blood test we discovered it was blocked . After 3 attempts still blocked ! They use a strong chemical called Heparin diluted with Saline solution to clean the pipes prior to action , but today no way - now what ?
Our nurse disappears to try call Sharon to ask for advice but returns to say that our good Dr. advised her to draw blood peripherally from the arm as they have to check the blood counts to assess whether the chemo plan can go ahead or not .
This was problem number 2 - after convincing Vanya that it's only another quick bee- sting and all over our nurse decides to say 2 wrong things : "don't worry honey I am also scared of needles" and " we'll just stick it in and hope for the best" . The result was no blood and problem number 3 - she missed the vein !! Well that's when Dad sprung into action as calmy but assertively as possible {although Sylvia did not think so } .
Within 20 minutes I had Sharon back there and guess what ? in 10 minutes she had the pipes cleared , the blood drawn and off to the lab for testing , no pain , no fuss ! Then came the wait to see if the white blood cells or platelets were too low or high meaning no chemo today and maybe a blood or platelet transfusion{an all-nighter } .
If high enough then we would have the 1st of 8 bum injections . It came back with a count of 63.5{platelets} so the injection was on , below 50 it would have been off . First the Emla patch to numb the skin as this was the sore injection remember !
This was the longest "eina'' scream we've heard so far , as this one burns right into the muscle and we had to restrain her hands and legs { well mom did } until I was called to help .
That's how our day ended and after a 2 hour obseravtion period to ensure there was no allergic or epileptic reactions we were on our way home with OUR CHAMPION CHILD WHO HAD BRAVELY OVERCOME ANOTHER little BATTLE - AND MANAGES TO MAINTAIN HER GOOD SPIRITS { oh and we had to stop on the way home to buy 2 budgies }.
May this weekend be filled with peace , health and love as we wait for Monday 10h30 - bone marrow extraction and 2nd bum injected chemo . 6 more to go every 3 days which will not be easy for us as Vanya has had a taste of how sore these ones are .
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