Oncology Follow-Up

Today Raylee had a follow-up appointment with her oncologist. She was so excited to go back to the hospital this morning. She wanted to spend the night. What Raylee didn't realize was this follow-up appointment not only was going to take all day, but it wasn't going to be much fun.
We started the day with a CT scan. Since Raylee is under 4-years-old she has to be prepped for sedation regardless if she is sedated for the scan. This meant that Raylee couldn't eat or drink since midnight the night before the scan. This didn't seem to bother her too much. When we checked into medical imaging they took us back to a room to give Raylee and IV. Since Raylee no longer has her central line an IV is needed to inject the dye for the scan. Raylee's hope of having a fun day at the hospital was quickly stolen. She knew exactly what the nurses were going to do and she began to cry and scream "no poke!" She is one hell of a strong kid. She sat in Jerry's lap while he held her tight and it took 3 other nurses and myself to keep her as still as possible. She still managed to wiggle, fling herself, and push herself out of Jerry's arms. They had a difficult time finding a vein for the IV. They tried a technique of turning the lights off and putting a light on her hand to find the vein. This worked but the IV looked like a disaster--and it hurt Raylee really bad. Raylee was ready to go home by this time and we had only been there for 30 minutes. We still had a lot to accomplish.
After the IV, one of the radiologists brought out a jug of contrast to drink for the imaging. They flavor it to try to disguise the awful taste. It isn't easy trying to get a 3-year-old to drink this; especially because it's almost 20 ounces that she needs to drink. We wandered around the hospital encouraging her to drink and trying to keep her entertained as much as possible because the imaging can't take place until 1 hour after she starts drinking it; we simply had time to kill. We spilt the contrast once and lost track of how much she drank--but we have been through this before and we were not worried about it. Even though the nurses say she needs to drink a certain amount, she had scans in the past and wasn't able to drink it all and the images turned out fine. After drinking half the amount needed Raylee started looking as if she was going to throw it up as she gagged it down and began refusing it. So we proceeded with the imaging.
Raylee is a very curious child. Prior to the CT scan she wandered back to the radiologists offices and the employee hallways by the CT Scanning room. The radiologists didn't mind and it was as if they took her on a private tour. They showed her their computers and imaging machines, where they work, and what things do. It was kinda funny because she was asking them questions, What is this? What does it do? They promised to show her the images of her belly on their computer when she was done. And they did just that, they showed us her images and it was really amazing how these machines shaped like a doughnut can take such amazing pictures of organs and every in between skin and bone. Since she's experienced many CT scans now, I knew she wouldn't have any problems lying still for it and sedation wouldn't be necessary. It actually seemed to relax her after the traumatic IV experience. The actual pictures only take around 10 to 15 minutes.
These were not the only pictures to be taken today. Raylee also had an echocardiograph. The follow-up echos are very short around 10 minutes. They are important to ensure she has no heart problems from having chemo. Raylee was nervous for the echo but she came out of it like a champ. By this time she received two new stuffed animals for being amazing, a teddy bear in medical imaging and a stuffed dinosaur from cardiology. (Big Sigh) No wonder Raylee gets excited to go to the hospital--they give her toys and stuffed animals.
After all the tests we finally made it to oncology. The staff there just love her and build up her self-confidence as they tell her how amazing she is, how cute she is, how smart she is, how happy they are to see her, etc. One of the nurses came in to draw blood and Raylee patted her on the bum and said, 'Feel my hair it's soft." Her oncologist kept telling us how happy she was that Raylee's treatment was short and that she is doing so well. She was happy to say nothing abnormal was showing on any of the images. What a relief! I knew nothing abnormal would show but hearing the words from her oncologist was liberating.