12/5/17 Second Cycle of Chemo

What chemo treatment actually looks like. 

So, here we are again...same song, second verse.

The second time for in-patient chemo there are some noted differences. You know what to expect based on round one, so the mystery isn't as scary. But the flip side to that coin is that you now know that this is going to be uncomfortable and painful and nauseating and daunting and just plain ole awful.

Daddy brought her up here this time and got her situated so I could work an extra day. (This is only because I love my job and want to be there as much as possible, while allowing him to use his off day to our advantage.) So, I taught and got things together for a substitute the next couple of days while he got her checked into the hospital. I arrived right after they started the second medication.

Day one: admit and receive five different chemo drugs
Day two: receive four different chemo drugs
Day three: three different chemo drugs, discharge

Waiting for a room on the floor.

All of this occurs in addition to the anti-nausea, anti-heartburn, pain, nerve pain, antibiotics, benedryl party train we are riding. It's something. I think we are taking roughly 27 things a day.

The two biggest traumas thus far, however, were that we lost our hair and that we gained five pounds in a month.  The nurse congratulated her because some people really lose way too much weight (from being nauseated) and some people really gain a ton of water weight (from the drugs). She's taking Prednesone, which is sometimes known as "dreadnizone" because of the horrible side effects. Crankiness, moodiness, increased appetite, swelling in face and abdomen, water weight gain...we are having all of that in spades. (Although some of that could just be Elise being Elise in her natural state. Ahem.)

The duck face is always in style.

But explaining to a teenage girl that losing her hair and gaining five pounds are blessings (means the chemo is working and the Prednisone is working) is like trying to put a sweater on an octopus--exhausting and fruitless.

Still, she's working it like a champ.

Observations:
Nurses who work in pediatric oncology have to be called to it as a ministry. They are all so wonderful at Children's. We have had universally excellent experiences here at this hospital. I really can't say enough about it.

I hate traffic. I have no idea how I drove up I-65 into Birmingham every day for like 14 years. Not a clue. (You couldn't pay me enough to come back up here and work in this mess again.)

Hospital food has improved vastly over the last decade.

I think this sofa is half the length it should be and feels
like a cot from an Army/Navy surplus outlet specializing in
Communist Bloc prisoner of war camp relics.

I forgot how nice it is to sit in the quiet without any noise or talking or moving about. It's sort of blissful.

It absolutely does take a village to raise a child. I can't even imagine taking care of the 5,000 things I'm responsible for without all of the helping hands and intervening friends and family who have run to and fro for us over the past month.

If Disney can make an incredibly comfortable convertible fold-out bed that is the size of a normal twin bed, could someone please intervene on behalf of hospitals everywhere and share that technology with the rest of the world. Please. Seriously. (I'm not joking. I think this thing they want me to sleep on came over on the Ark.)

Someone stole my food from the Family Room fridge. Okay, so it was homemade roast, carrots, and potatoes, therefore I totally get it. (Proving that people are people all of the time even on the pediatric oncology floor.) (And no, it wasn't misplaced; they washed out my dish and put it back in the fridge empty.) (Again, not kidding.) Unbeknownst to them, I had TWO go plates in that fridge and got to eat some of my roast after all. (Take THAT, Karma.) Really only joking and not mad--it sucks being up here and eating homemade roast probably made someone feel much better. (It was spectacular, by the way.)

I am so blessed. So, so very blessed. In every possible conceivable way.