Day 2 of chemo

December 19-20, 2013

Morning of Day 2.  Ready for more Chemo Therapy!

Jaycee woke up feeling pretty good after a long day of chemo and surgery the day before.  I think it was all the pain meds and zofran that was keeping her happy.  This was short lived, we could see the side effects of the chemo kick in by early afternoon.  She began to look pale and you could see in her eyes that she was not feeling good at all.  The vomiting began and she started to not want to eat and that is not like Jaycee!  We all know how much she likes to eat, you can tell from all her pictures that she is WELL FED!!! She would never miss a meal!  Actually in most cases she would "Double Down" (if you know what I mean)!!

 

Day 2 and the sickness begins.

She was given some more drugs for chemo and lots of fluids because they were worried about dehydration and also they wanted to flush the medications out of her system as fast as they could.  The faster they were out of her system the better.  We had to be on a new schedule for diaper duty, She had to be changed every two hours which means I changed enough diapers in two days to cover my diaper duty for about two weeks! :)  

Just hours after receiving the chemo she looked even worse.  It was scary to see and it broke our hearts to know that she was suffering.  I would do anything to be in her place and to suffer all the pain so that she would not have to.  

The nurse did a blood draw and they found that her hemoglobin was low.  That concerned them since she was just starting. They expect it to bottom out after about 7-10 days and the level she was at would mean she would bottom out a lot sooner so they had to do a blood transfusion to get her hemoglobin levels up to where they felt comfortable letting us go home.  It is not uncommon for cancer patients to receive blood transfusions multiple times throughout their treatments.  It was just another thing for us to worry about but it ended up being a good thing.  She almost immediately felt and looked better after receiving the blood, her color came back, her heart rate decreased and she seemed to have more energy.  It was good to see some improvement but it will only be short lived until the chemo drops her levels again the next few days.  

  

Feeling sick before the blood transfusion.

 Beginning her blood transfusion. 

The transfusion went well and she did not have any side effects or reactions to this "foreign" blood going into her little body.  We were able to get some rest and prepare to go home the next day.  We were ready to go home but worried for fear of her getting sick and being capable of taking care of her.  We would not be able to do it without all the prayers and help from loving family and friends.  We are lucky to have such great support.

December 20, 2013

Jaycee slept pretty good and the next day I think she was even ready to get out of the hospital.  She would have an occasional spell where she would vomit or not feel good but for the most part she was doing fairly well.  She was hydrated enough and was eating well enough that the doctors did not have to send us home with IV fluids that we would have had to give her every night.  They were able to take the needle out of her port and send us home. 

  

Taking the needle our of her port to go home!!  She just laid there and didn't even move.  What a trooper!

Bundled up ready to go home!

After taking the needle out we were discharged and the journey begins as we head home on our own.  The last three days were filled with teaching and lessons on how to care for her.  We had lots of lessons about the medications, so now it was time to put to practice what we've learned!! We will see how it goes.