Back on Track

Clearly my daughter decides when she would like to start her Chemotherapy and when I've had enough frustration. Certainly the last couple of days have been extremely frustrating.

Yesterday we headed down to QA after dropping Sam off to school at 1.00pm as planned and we encountered the same issue of her line being completely blocked, so the Starfish Matron Lorraine who was looking after us yesterday quickly arranged for an X ray to be done. By 2.15pm X ray was done and we waited for a plan, and we waited, 2 hours and some later we were still waiting and by then even the chair and buggy blocking the door couldn't hold Paige in the room anymore. Of course our little miss Paige can now open doors all by herself! Finally we were told that if they could not clear the blockage with another dose of Urokonaise that she would be scheduled for a replacement Central Line on Thursday. A replacement means surgery, an overnight stay at Southampton General, not to mention the stress and trauma that goes along with it. A full blood count was also needed and that was taken one tiny drop at a time from my poor daughter's fingers :-( She was not happy about that at all, and neither was I. It was all too obvious to me however that they were all stumped by the blockage.

So again after dropping Sam off to school this morning at 9.00am, Paige and I reluctantly headed down to QA to meet with Wilf for Day 3 of the blocked line. Finally after much effort from Wilf we had blood!!! Plus her blood results were back and she has a whooping 1.7 neutrohils - YAY. Piam Brown confirmed that Chemo could start today. So after a further infusion of Urokonaise we left QA at 1.00pm and got to PM by 2.00pm. Unfortunately we weren't seen till 4.00pm and Chemo didn't start till 4.30pm, but hey we started delayed intensification and Paige is in ripping form.

So after three very frustrating days, and lots of hanging around doing nothing for hours, Paige has finally started her last block of intensive Chemo and we're chugging along again.
Today she had
1. doxorubicin - the chemo that makes her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes fall off,
2. vincristine - the chemo that makes her walk on her tippy toes.
Plus seven days of the dreaded dexamethazone, which is the steroid that makes her COMPLETELY miserable and out of sorts. Later this week she'll have Peg Asparaginaise which is 'intra muscular' and very painful.

So a special thank you to Elfrieda your payers worked really well and we are back on track. Now some much needed sleep for me....