Friday the 30th

The first bag of IV chemo got started around 2am or so. This was the quickest start yet. It was probably less than 12 hours from admission. So she was admitted, PICC line placed, lab work done, chemo mixed up and started in less than 12 hours…not bad. Once daylight hit, they sent her down to IR for intrathecal chemo. Dr. Fahrtash wasn’t working but Dr. Trinh was, so all went well…no issues in IR. Shannon didn’t experience any spinal headaches either.

Saturday 31st and Sunday 1st

The weekend went by fast. We had a lot of our regular nurses. It’s like home here on the 20th floor because we’ve pretty much had every nurse up here, so we know everyone and they know us too. I think it was Saturday night the nurses were short-handed. They had 14 patients needing chemo and only 2 of the nurses were chemo certified on the nightshift. They typically only have 5 patients or so per nurse I believe. Somehow they worked thru it and we didn’t experience any setbacks. The oncology nurses on the 20th floor are really good. We think they were short-staffed due to the holiday weekend.

Shannon got thru most of her chemo by Sunday and had no issues…no headaches, no nausea, and no pain. She slept well, ate well and went for walks around the unit. Dr. Abuasab was rounding the 1st couple of days for Oncology and then Dr. Mims has rounded since Sunday morning. Dr. Althreya (the attending) also stopped by every morning. We’ve had a good crew all weekend and Shannon has breezed thru the chemo without any issues. Her labs are all still within normal limits too. We do expect them to start dropping once we get home as usual.