Day 2 Round #5

Michael started round 5 yesterday with a few complications. We got him to the hospital about 7:30 and they called him in to insert the CVC catheter where they attach the chemo. We went to get an xray done and found that the line had a hook in the end of it and so they had to power flush it to get the hook straightened out. Went back to xray to make sure it was straight and then to chemo for 4 hours. They finally started the chemo at 12:15 pm and we finished with the inpatient part about 4:30pm. We were pretty hungry and tired. Michael is now toting his backpack.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 -----had a pretty good day today. Went to the hospital and was called for chemo within about 45 minutes of arriving. Surprise! Michael decided he wanted to leave the CVC line in until the end. Contacted Lindsey, Dr. Ravi's nurse and she advised that he could leave it in, but that he could not have blood drawn from it because each time you access it there is a greater chance of an infection. That was the main reason Michael wanted to leave it in so he would not have to have them dig around in his veins each time he had blood drawn. He has always been hard to hit, and really is now since he has had chemo. So, guess we will have a new line inserted for three more times at least, and hopefully that will be all. Michael spirits are great, just tired of all the needles. He is full of pzazzzzz and his appetite is non filling. He has had hiccups today a couple of times, but we are pretty much accustomed to that on days two through six. They are caused by the chemo. We had lasagna at one of the restaurants on the way home today. He was a little upset while getting chemo because we could not access the Internet.....MD Anderson was down......but it did come back up about 30 minutes before we left. Hope you all enjoyed the rain this morning. Understand the roads around town were a little wet and some of the folks had to stay at the coffee shop a little longer than normal waiting for the mud holes to dry up some. Thanks to all for watching things around the house for us. Don't know what we would do without you all. Love, Terri and Michael