First Chemo

Hi there,

Here's the news on Ian's chemo yesterday. The short is all is well.

The long is we left at 7:10 am and got home at 10:15 pm.

We arrived in time for Ian's blood draw to check his numbers. No needle since there's a PICC line - one good thing.

We met first with Dr. Newman and Dr. Link (he's the service chief (head?) of pediatric oncology) who went over all the chemo meds and other things. It's confusing, but essentially they're going back and forth between some of the meds to maximize effectiveness and minimize damaging heart, lungs, etc. I think Natalie will be sending you a complete list of all the meds, Dad. Dr. Link seems like a good egg and though Ian was tired, he joked with him some!

After lunch we went to Pulmonary testing Lab. Ian had a complete, 1 hour long, pulmonary function test to create a baseline. He had fun doing that and the technician enjoyed him, saying she'd never seen anyone come up with so many ways to use a nose clip!

After that we went back to oncology for the chemo and waited. And waited. We found out that not all the circling and signing had been on the treatment plan forms earlier, so we had to do that, twice. Plus, even though they knew we were there, Ian's name didn't get put up on the board, so after 90 minutes we finally went back and then waited a bit more. Sigh.

First anti-nausua med, then they come in all gowned up, covered head to toe. Why? We wouldn't want to get these chemo medicines on our skin, very dangerous. (And they inject them into Ian!!!) I know this is how it works, it's just a bit shocking at first. Ian just read his book throughout. Then they changed the dressing on his PICC line, using adhesive remover and some skin protection cream and put a stretchy cotton thing over the whole thing.

Since it was now 5:30 we went to Max's Opera Cafe for dinner. Ian really wanted to take Natalie there, but he complained of his arm hurting where the dressing had been changed. It got worse and worse. We ate quickly and went back over, but the Oncology Clinic was closed, so went to the Stanford ER. They pushed us through quickly for an ER, but we didn't leave til after 8. The nurse put cold compress on his arm til the Dr. came and that really helped. The Dr. figures it was a skin contact reaction to something in the adhesive remover and said the cold compress appeared to be the best approach for now, but not to let them use that same kind of adhesive remover in the future. Definitely!

So we blitzed home (2 hours). Ian got a bit nauseous at the end, a combo of the chemo and the windy road perhaps (normally he never gets car sick). I think we'll come home a different way from now on that's not windy. He slept well and looks good this morning.

One chemo treatment down, 7 more to go!

Love, David and Natalie