Things went fairly smoothly today. It seemed there were a few more traffic tie-ups on the way in this morning so we'll have to adjust our "leave-time" so that we have a little breathing room between arrival and appointment times.
Yesterday, Pete was instructed to go directly to the chemo suite instead of stopping in at the labs for blood work. That way they could use his port to draw blood instead of accessing a vein, pricking him needlessly. A small glitch was Pete's port. Every so often it gets temperamental and refuses to give a blood return, and that's what it decided to do today. D tried a few "tricks" to no avail which included pushing in a little Heparin. She decided to just start the fluid and let that run for a few minutes and then try to draw blood as this sometimes works at getting the port to cooperate.
True to it's fickle nature, when D again tried to get a blood return on the port it wasn't successful, so Pete wound up getting "stuck", quite literally, for that important blood work sample.
Along with the Ifosfomide, Pete was also infused with Emend today. D explained that they included the Emend on days 1, 3 and 5 according to this particular protocol. We also learned today that the hospital would be open on Sunday so there would be no disruption to Pete's daily dose of fluids and blood testing.
I almost forgot a little incident that happened yesterday that was a bit amusing. One of the first things they do when Pete arrives is to record his vitals: blood pressure, temp, weight, etc. Yesterday they also recorded his height. Now keep in mind that Pete is quite tall, and envision the GEICO commercial where the man asks, "Is Too-Tall-Jones really too tall?" As life imitates art, if you can call a TV commercial art, Pete stepped onto the scale and the nurse raised the pole to determine his height and wound up with the rod in her hand. She had to hold the two ends together because his height was just where the poles joined.
Outside of the hospital, Pete has a number of instructions he must follow carefully. Keeping well hydrated requires him to drink, drink, drink, so he keeps a water bottle close at hand and drinks often. He also has to take sodium bicarbonate 4 times each day to replenish electrolytes. Potassium is another addition to his regimen, also to maintain the electrolyte levels.
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