On the first of every month my grandmother always said
“Rabbits!” for luck when she woke up.
I forgot to say “Rabbits”
yesterday. That may account for my most unusual and LONG day at the
infusion clinic for my fifth Erbitux/Camptosar treatment on June first.
My appointment was for 8:45 AM and since they ask you to be
there fifteen minutes early, we arrived
at 8:30. I signed in, paid my co-pay and was called back to the lab to be
weighed, have my temperature taken and my
blood pressure recorded. My temp was below normal and my blood pressure was slightly low, but neither seemed to be a problem. Getting
blood through the port for the blood test, however, was a major problem. The phlebotomist, after several
attempts in which she had me raise my arm or turn my head, was unable to get my
port to draw, so she sent me over to the oncology nurses to see if they could
get it to work. They sat me in one of the recliners and tipped it all the way back so I was nearly standing on
my head. Nothing seemed to work. The phlebotomist, meanwhile, took blood from
my arm so as not to hold things up any
more than was needed. They then injected what the nurse referred to as a liquid
plumber to break up any obstruction in the catheter and I was put in a cold room to give it time to work.
Did I mention that the temp in the building is kept just slightly above the
temperature in a meat cooler? I was beginning to wonder if my blood had frozen
solid and that’s why they couldn’t get it to come out.
After about an hour in the
exam room the doctor came in, apologizing for all the delays. Seems they are in the process of converting
all the paper patient files to an electronic format, so instead of bringing in
my usual thick green folder, she was carrying a little mini computer. Evidently
there is a steep learning curve and computer people were constantly bustling
about and everything was delayed, even
getting the orders for the
infusions.
I told the doctor
about the skin reaction I had over the weekend, which was a LOT worse than the previous outbreak and caused intense itching and burning, leaving me with bright red skin, big welts all over my neck and flaking, dry skin that was peeling off. I got it under control with some Aveeno products and was amazed at how well they worked on calming the rash and redness down and softening my skin. The doctor said she thought I was probably having
a reaction to the doxycycline. She had asked me before prescribing it if I had
an allergy to tetracycline, and I told her I had no idea, since I had taken so
few drugs in my life. Turns out I may have an allergy or a sensitivity to it
after all. We’ll see how it goes this time without the doxycycline. She said I’ll have my sixth treatment in two
weeks and then another scan the week after that to see how the drugs are
working. I told her that between my
thinning hair and scaly flaking skin I
thought I was transmogrifying into a
hybrid cross between Lizard Lady and Gollum, so they had better be working just
to make all this worthwhile! Meanwhile the nurses tried a few more times to get blood to
draw, to no avail. I was told they would send someone to take me to radiology to see if the port and catheter
have shifted or become obstructed and needed to be removed and replaced. I kept my fingers crossed that the problem was a minor, easily corrected one.
I went back to the
waiting room to… yes, wait. So I waited
and waited for the wheelchair person to show up. Finally, after making a few
calls and determining that everybody
was tied up for emergencies, one of the
receptionists from the oncology department wheeled me over. That was quite a trip, down hallways, around
corners, through the walkway connecting the clinic to the main hospital, then
down more hallways. It was a regular
maze and I would never have found my way over there on my own, even if I had
been able to walk that far without collapsing!
Once I was up on the radiology table and the plates were
placed under me, the doctor moved the machine into position, assuring me that
the arm would come very close to me but wouldn’t actually touch me. Then he had
me hold my breath while the machine did its thing. It was kind of neat to
actually see the port in place and how long the catheter was. The radiologist
was able to draw blood with no problem, there was no obstruction or kinking and
nothing had shifted, so they don’t know what the actual problem was. I was
wheeled back out and waited once more for the valet service to take me back. I thought, since it was already past 1:00
and my infusion has been taking between four and five hours, that they might
reschedule, but they decided to go ahead and told me I should be finished up by
4:30. The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful. Well, except for the
trips to the rest room that became extremely frequent once the infusions
began, prompting the nurse to move me
to a chair just outside the bathroom door so I wouldn’t have to drag my pole
and infusion bags so far.
Mr. G left at one point to go home and let the dogs out. We
were worried they might have accidents all over the house since they hadn’t
been out in quite a while. He said they were most anxious to get out, too, and
made a mad dash to the back door when he got home.
He came back and spent another hour in the waiting
room. Finally I was finished and we
arrived home at around 5:15 PM, nine hours after we’d left. I was hungry and exhausted, but fell asleep
before I got a chance to eat. Mr, G
made me a sandwich and I ate a little when I woke up at 7:30 before
falling asleep again. I slept on and off all night and am finally beginning to
feel almost normal, or as normal as I usually feel after an infusion. You can
rest assured that on the first of July,
I will wake up saying “Rabbits!” to avoid another occurrence like the fifth on
the first!
