Chem-UGH-Thearpy

Olive finished her second round of her Carboplatin chemotherapy on Thursday. Two months down, ten more to go. It was a long and torturous day. If all goes well, her treatments last anywhere from 6 to 8 hours. However, we have yet to have a treatment go without a hitch. One of the biggest challenges is keeping Olive from ripping out her IV tubing. Olive had a small device called a portacath placed directly under the skin of her chest. It is a small chamber that is sealed on one end with a rubber plug, and a tube on the other end that enters a major artery near her collarbone. The doctors can then administer her medication and withdraw blood through the rubber plug end of her port. This is a great way to keep from destroying her arm veins with the hundreds of needle pokes she would require. The problem, however, is that Olive can see the tubing coming directly out of her chest and wants to do nothing more than pull it out. My job is to keep her from doing just that. Anyone who has every attempted to keep a 1 year old from doing something they are determined to do, knows how nearly impossible it is. To add more challenge to the fun her cervical collar rubs over the top of her port. When there is a needle in the port, she can't wear her collar. So for six to eight hours I am freaking out about her hurting her spine. For those who don't know, during Olive's first tumor resection, they removed her first 7 vertebrate in order to access her tumor. Those vertebrate were not replaced. Now Olive must wear a protective collar until they fuse her neck around age 8 or 9. By the end of chemo that day Olive had only pulled the IV out once, and I was exhausted. Chemotherapy did not sit well with her this time and she practically gave up all eating and drinking in the days that followed. Yesterday she was admitted to the hospital so she could receive 6 hours of fluid and some medicine to get her bowels moving. My mom and dad had already gone back to Pocatello, and I could not find anyone to sit with Rex, so he came too. It wasn't too bad having him there. He must have known he needed to be on his best behavior because he was a doll all day. In the meantime the fluids worked wonders and Olive is already back to her old self. Thank heavens.