first dose of chemo

So yesterday was pretty amazing, I have to say. Mom was a certifiable rockstar - holding true to the pattern thus far.

We arrived at Sloan around 8am for Mom's 8:15 appointment with Dr. Pietanza. Our friend Susannah (daughter of Gina Karlsson who used to babysit Clancy and Jennifer and certifiable rockstar in her own right) joined us and was there all day with us - made a huge difference. They took Mom's vitals. She has dropped more weight, which we all kind of knew, and her blood pressure is a bit low, but otherwise she is doing well. Dr. Pietanza filled us in again on what to expect with the chemo (hair loss, some nausea, possible pain in the bones and joints, fatigue). It turns out that Mom will have treatment once every THREE weeks, not once every two weeks. She also listened to Mom's lungs and said that they sound much better now than the last time she saw her - mid-February. Mom will have another appt with Dr. Pietanza in two weeks.

We went back to the waiting room for a bit after the exam, and then we were brought back to the "chemotherapy suite" - a suite indeed! We had our own little room - given the option, Mom wisely chose a bed over a chair - with a lovely sliding door and little wood cutout window frames, plants in the window. It was just a really nice room, serene, pleasant, and as Susannah put it "like a Japanese hotel room".

We met Sarah, Mom's fabulous nurse, who is my exact age, super sweet and really bright. Sloan makes an effort to hook each patient up with the same nurse for each treatment, so that's kinda cool. I like the consistency. She did a "teaching session" with us, talked more about the side effects, discussed the different anti-nausea medications, and also went over the plan to decrease the steroids. It looks like Mom will be off steroids completely by early April.

So then Sarah started an IV after finding an appropriate vein (good times!), and then administered a saline solution to Mom along with some "pre-meds"to help prep her veins and system for the chemo. Susannah and I jumped out at that point to grab some lunch, and Sarah waited for our return before she began the chemo. So at about 2pm they started giving Mom the first part of the chemo cocktail, which was Taxol. At the start of each chemo treatment, there will always be two nurses in the room: one to check Mom's info & the drug info on a chart and the other to verify that the same exact info is on the drug itself, before administering it. Pretty cool.

So the Taxol took about 3 hours, during which time Mom ate lunch (Sloan provides lunch when there's a long treatment...she had a cobb salad and ate every last bite. I took a picture of the empty container and will try to post it later!). She also slept for about 1.5 hours of it, which was totally amazing and wonderful. Sarah stayed with us for the first 15 minutes of the Taxol part, because she said if Mom were going to have a bad reaction it would happen then. She slept and ate so needless to say, she was fine. After the Taxol they gave her a bit more saline, followed by the Carboplatin, which took about 30 minutes. We all applauded when she finished the Carboplatin - first treatment DONE!

I wrote out a new chart for Mom so she knows which drugs to take when, and so far so good. She had a little urpiness but was mainly just tired after we left. She had dinner, went to sleep, and successfully took her meds this morning.

All is well.