meh

I haven't updated here in awhile...too much going on, and not enough.


Katie had her first round of chemo last week, plus the port insertion. They admitted her wednesday morning and did the port surgery around 10:30-11. The doctor was an ass and refused to thread the port while she was sedated, because it "wasn't his responsibility". Basically, he didn't want to do a nurse's job. So, because he was a jerk or lazy or whatever, it took almost 45 minutes and about 10 different nurses poking and prodding to get one of the ports (its a double) threaded. The other they couldn't use because the doctor placed the sutures right over it, which is not normal procedure. SO she had to have an iv in all three days she was admitted for they could give her fluids and medications. Luckily we never have to deal with him again, jerk.

But she felt like crap all day wednesday. they didn't start the chemo until almost 11 PM because they had to wait for some of the swelling to go down around the port and because of all the fluids and preemptive antinausea drugs (i think they gave her emend prior to the chemo and i know they gave her ativan because she was so anxious). And her mother and i had to leave as soon as they started the chemo, which sucked.

they didn't tell her until the next day that they were goving her another dose that night. We need to ask dr. wright about that because katie was so out of it and i wasn't there during the second treatment so ask why we hadn't been told about the dose on thursday. Her mood was really low on thursday...i wasn't happy about leaving but I had to be home by 8 because of the bus schedule.

She was released friday morning. Felt horrible. She hurt all over (except her wrist which actually wasn't hurting at all at that point) and was nauseous even with the cocktail of drugs they had her on (compezine, ativan, kytril, emend the night before). She had eaten almost nothing. She got a shot of neulasta for her white blood count. Then we brought her home and she slept the rest of the day.

I had some drama with getting her antibiotics the next day as apparently they were on backorder from the manufacturer in all of central ny...but they had another size of pill so she could just double up. The side effects of the antibiotics (ceftin) in combo with the chemo made her really sick. She couldn't digest very well and felt full all the time for over a week, regardless of how little she ate.

She is feeling better, now, over a week later. she gets tired very easily and the port is still tender, especially around the neck where the catheter was threaded into the vein.

this is going to suck, it really will. i am worried about katie emotionally...the first week she was very depressed and it still very emotional, which i guess can be a side effect of the chemo. but i asked her to talk to dr wright about it, and if she doesn't I will. Both for her and for me, I need her to be less depressed, I need her to be able to handle the physical depression better so that the emotional/chemical depression doesn't get out of control...

But we went to the farmer's market today, and then managed to find the pride festival. It still cracks me up the syracuse has a glbt pride...but it was actually quite crowded. there is a community here, they are just very scattered, which is sad. It made me miss boston, a lot.