ALL DAY Thursday Clinic Visit - Maintenance Round 4

Today's clinic visit lasted 7 hours!!! ARGH!!!!

We got there at 10am and it was about an hour before they accessed Katie's port. Once she was accessed, they soon realized that they couldn't get a blood return from the line, even though the needle was in the correct position. So, they re-accessed her two more times and tried without success to get a blood return. After about another hour or so, they decided to send Katie for a chest X-ray to see if the port was still in the right position, to make sure that it hadn't flipped over or turned upside down. That took about another hour. Then, once they determined that her port was still in the correct place, they decided to administer a drug called TPA. This is a type of blood thinner that sits in the line. The hope is that if there is some type of clot in the line, the TPA will dissolve it and the line will be clear from blockage and they will then be able to get a blood return. After another hour with the TPA in the line, they were in fact able to get a blood return and send off her blood for a CBC. The start of each round depends on whether or not her Absolute Phagocyte Count (APC) is over 1,000 or not. If not, they do not start the next round. The CBC results took ANOTHER hour. Finally at 4:30pm, they got the CBC results, all counts looked good, she got her Vincristine and we were out the door. It was a VERY LONG DAY at the clinic today.

But, Katie was in good spirits as she got to see her boyfriends...yes, I said boyfriends. Jeff, from Hole in the Wall Gang, has been added to the list of Katie's boyfriends. He was thrilled about this news when Katie informed him that he was now one of her boyfriends...lol. We also got to see "Fun Chris" and Oscar the dog :-)

Today's clinic visit consisted of the following:
1) Port access
2) Chest X-ray
3) TPA in port line for 1 hour
4) a blood draw (FINALLY!!!)
5) Vincristine (Chemo)

This cycle will consist of the following:
Vincristine - Day 1 (same dose as previous cycles)
Methotrexate (oral at home chemo) - Days 1, 8 & 15 (same dose as the last cycle)
6-mercapturine (oral at home chemo) - Days 1-14 (same dose as the last cycle)
Dexamethasone (oral at home steroid)- Days 1-5 (same dose as the last cycle)

Next planned clinic visit will be in three weeks, June 26th.