Chemo Round 2

We admitted Raylee to the hospital today at 10:00 am for her second round of Chemotherapy. Her treatments for neuroblastoma will all be inpatient treatments. It is now almost 5:00 pm and she still has not received her Chemo....what a long day...and still a longer night to come. There is a lot of prep work that happens before they actually inject her with Chemo. I never knew it was such a process and science. I am not sure if all Chemotherapy treatments are like this. All day Raylee has been injected with a lot of different fluids to prepare her body for the Chemo and to fill her bladder. She has to have a great amount of urine output during Chemo; basically that is what we are currently waiting for...her urine output to be a large quantity. This is because one of the Chemo medicines she is given can damage the bladder and they do not want the medicine sitting in her bladder. They will also give her another medicine before the Chemo medicine to coat the bladder for protection. During this round of Chemo Raylee will receive 3 different Chemo drugs. They will inject them back to back and it will take over 2 hours.

Today the Child Life Specialist 'Mike' whom all the kids here adore and all the doctors and nurses speak highly of, came and played with Raylee. His play is play therapy. He is going to help Raylee to be able to take medicines orally again. He said children don't have another avenue to express how they feel and release stress like we do with things like journaling, running, etc. He said kids express everything through play. He said there are some cancer patients who get sick on their drive to the hospital because they have it in their minds they are going to get sick before the Chemo actually makes them sick. He also said it is really difficult to explain to a child, especially one as young as Raylee, that the medicines that are making her sick will also make her feel better too. With his help we hope to change Raylee's mind that medicines will not make her throw up. When she sees the oral medicine syringe she gags as if she is going to vomit...just a mental phenomena she has created in her mind.

I am so happy and grateful to live in a day with modern medicine. Mike said in the 1930's and 1940's children receiving Chemo were isolated and only the mother could see the child for 1 hour a day. I can't imagine Raylee being alone through this; that would be terrifying! During that time a brilliant doctor conducted research and proved having parents involved with their children's treatment actually increases the child's success at winning the fight against cancer. This seems like common sense to me---with all things, not just fighting cancer. When children have a great and active support system they will be successful in all things whether it is school, church involvement, sports, or overcoming an illness.

Raylee is napping right now....I am just waiting, waiting, waiting, it is actually really boring and exhausting to just be here. So happy my friends brought me some magazines!! Thank you guys :) Raylee had such a fun weekend and she was full of happiness and energy. We recently celebrated her 3rd birthday! After such a wonderful weekend it was really hard to bring her to the hospital, knowing what is to come :( The drive to the hospital felt like we driving in slow motion even though we arrived quicker than we wanted. Here's to a long night...and to a brave little new 3-year-old who is kicking some cancer butt!

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Raylee had a difficult evening; seemed she had an anxiety attack--who could blame her though? She has gone through so much lately. She cried and cried for over an hour and nothing was going to comfort her. I felt bad....helpless....and desperate for anything to make her comfortable. It was around 8:00 pm and Jerry came to relieve me for the night since it was his turn to stay overnight with Raylee. What a great husband! I left around 9:30 pm and they were getting Raylee's Chemo ready for injection--finally! Its disheartening when you are in and out of the hospital 4 times in a month and you notice things there have changed. For instance, all visitors are now required to check-in at the security desk and have photo ID and wear a visitors sticker, when room service brings Raylee food there is a "prepared by......" card on the tray, well now it is printed in color with a picture of a turtle, also some of the tile in the floor has changed.