Well, today was a "fun" day. First, starting last night, Barbara is starting to loose her hair. It is only coming out as single strands, but definitely more than normal hair lose. Her head is also a little sensitive, so it is hurting a little. This is bothering her, so it was not a good start to the second cycle.
Otherwise, the day started out pretty good. We arrived at the hospital at 9am and everything went well during her treatment. Her potassium was a little low, so they encouraged her to eat more spinach and bananas which she will try to do. I ran some errands while she was getting her treatment and brought back a Turkey sandwich from Subway which she really enjoyed.
She completed the treatment about 2:30 with no problems or issues at that point and we started to head home. Unfortunately, after stopping at the bathroom and just as she made it to the car, she started having trouble breathing. I went back in and got one of the Oncology nurses and they came out immediately and took her into the ER where they immediately started checking her out. We were there about 2 hours and they mostly watched her closely for it to get better and not any worse. She started breathing OK pretty quickly which was their main concern. They did give her Benadryl through her port to help calm down the reaction as well as took blood to check for any major issues. They were ready to give her something stronger if needed, but wanted to avoid giving her anything stronger unless they really had to. Basically she was light headed, shaking, having trouble breathing and ultimately her legs were antsy. Before we left, the ER doc described it as most likely what they call an "adverse drug reaction", possibly an allergic reaction, but no real way to be sure. Part of her reaction was likely because of an adrenaline surge when she started having trouble breathing and then the reaction as the adrenaline passed out of her system.
The ER report and everything related will be given to her Oncologist tomorrow when he is in Farmington, so I am sure he will discuss with us in two weeks if not before to determine if he wants to change anything with her next treatment. In any case, after a treatment in the future, we plan to hang around the hospital for probably an hour or so after she has gotten up and moved around to make sure we are there if she has another reaction.
This was all a little scary especially since they are not sure what caused it. Hopefully the Oncologist will at least have an idea what the likely cause was, but given everything she was given, hard to sure which thing was the cause. As a side note, everyone at the hospital from the Oncology nurses to the ER people were quick and took good care of her, so we are very comfortable going there.
Now for just an update on the basics. As I said, until the reaction at the end, the treatment went well (two IV Chemo drugs plus continuing the Chemo pills). She is still feeling some nausea from the pills and did get some pain in her stomach like she did after the treatment last time, but I am taking that as a good sign that the Chemo is attacking the tumor in her stomach. No clue it that is really right, but trying to be positive by thinking that way. She is already starting to get the reaction to cold back and drinking something cold is already starting to be a problem, but that is not a surprise although we were hoping it would not be as bad. We will see in the next couple days if that gets as bad or not.
The next few days should be "loads of fun", but we do not need to leave the house if we don't have to, so hopefully she will start feeling better quickly.
Wayne
No comments:
Post a Comment