Cycle 3, Day 1

Cycle 3 is now underway and so far, going good.  There was no reaction after the treatment like last time, so the changes worked very well in that area.

Today was a very long day as we started at 7:30am and did not leave until 4:30.  This does not include the drive back and forth.  We knew it would be a long day, but it was an hour or 2 longer than expected because we had to wait on the first drugs to come up from the pharmacy.  Otherwise, everything went very well and Barbara is actually feeling pretty good so far although very tired.  We even stopped at Pizza Hut to eat on the way home and she handled the pizza with no problem.  Of course this is just day 1 and day 2 & 3 tend to be the worst.  Hopefully the nausea will stay low and she will get through this better than the first 2 cycles.  Also, she is on a pump for the 5FU drug and really only has a very small amount in her so far.  She will wear that pump for 5 days giving her the 5FU continuously over this time period.  Sleeping could get interesting as she has to wear it 24 hours a day.  We will have to go back on Monday around 4 to get the pump and port needle removed.  We will then have to go back either the same time on Tuesday or sometime Wednesday to get a shot of Neulasta to help keep her resistance from getting too low.  She cannot get the shot until at least 24 hours after the pump is stopped, but it can be up to 72 hours after.

Since I have gone over the specifics of this cycle in a previous posting, I will not go into the details again here.  See the last post for those specifics.

We still don't have the date and time for her CT scan as they are still waiting on the insurance to give approval.  I think this is at least partly due to the people at the hospital not sending the request until a couple days ago.  I think there was some confusion about the doctors order and who needed to get the scan scheduled.  Unless there is a real problem, we should know in a couple days (hopefully by Friday).

Again, so far Barbara is feeling better than previous starts other than being very tired.  Let's all hope that continues although we do expect the next couple days to be a little worse than today.

Wayne