The Very Long Chemo Day

Hello,

First of all, yes I titled this after reading a piece about Eric Carle. And if you don't have kids or read kids book's, Eric Carle is a picture book author and illustrator and he wrote, amongst other things, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Very cool piece about him on NPR.

Anyway, Monday was indeed a very long day for us. When we got to the clinic they told us that Bob would only be getting one of his two regular chemo drugs. They said that one of his liver function levels, his bilirubin (no idea if that is spelled correctly) was elevated and that the doctor had decided that they would hold on his Taxol, which is the drug made from the Yew tree for those of you who remember the first post.

So, they went ahead and gave him the other drug. I asked to talk to someone in our doctor's office about this elevated level and what this might mean, so the nurse in the clinic went on a long search to get us in touch with someone. Turns out, our doctor's regular nurse wasn't in that day. So they tracked down the nurse filling in, and she came to talk to us. She said that our doctor was not the one who had ordered the hold, that another doctor who runs the clinic had done that because of the elevated level, but that our doctor thought it was fine to go ahead with the Taxol.

So, by this time it was already afternoon and Bob had received all the meds except for the Taxol and the clinic nurse was just getting ready to take out his IV. But the doctor wanted him go ahead and get the Taxol, so we stayed about another hour and a half. By the way, the original doctor had done the right thing it seems, but Bob's doctor just knows his case better and felt it would be fine to go ahead with the medicine. So, it just turned out to be an extra long chemo day for us.

A Walter update, though I run the risk of this becoming the How's Bob & Walter page. He's still tinkling everywhere, and it's making me nuts. I had to change the sheets two night in a row, and right before we went to bed both times. It's sort of the straw breaking my back right now. I need to get him to the vet, but it's a challenge to find the time to do that right now.

Coughing update: This week I tried a couple more things. I thought maybe a cough syrup that was only a cough suppressant and not an expectorant might help, so I bought that kind of Robitussin. Seemed to help for about two hours, but then right back to the same. So, I thought maybe he just needs something to dry everything up, so the pharmacist recommended an antihistamine, so I got Alavert, a non-drowsy one. This just didn't seem to do anything at all. So I'll try Mikki's suggestion of hoarhound drops and ginger tea next.

K, that's all for now.

Carol