live from palo alto, its tuesday afternoon

so another long day is almost in the books...

trish and i arrived at stanford at 10am this morning for her blood draw up at the infusion center. this was the first time we have watched as her mediport was accessed, but aside from a little pinch (ok... trish said it felt like a knife going through her chest), nurse pat had the keg tapped, and the beer flowing... err... port tapped and blood flowing, in no time.
i think next week, we will have trish put the numbing cream on a little earlier..

we then headed down to dr. carlson's waiting room at 10:40am for our 11:00am appointment. trish early for something... (insert your own sarcastic comment here)

at 12:30pm we got into an exam room and met with nurse jan, reviewing the previous 7 days of trish's reaction to her new treatment.

dr. carlson and dr. telli came in around 1pm to examine trish, and outlined the coming weeks. they are pleased with trish's response to the chemo, and we will now only see them on a once a month basis (or unless we feel a need to meet with them).

by 2pm trish and i were seated in her patient station, #B6...
around 2:20pm nurse mary had trish's three pre-drugs flowing:

decadron: steroid to hinder any allergic reactions
diphenhydramine: a antihistamine also known as benedryl (makes trish a little loopy and sleepy)
famotidine: an antacid, also known as pepcid

around 3:40pm trish began on her taxol and herceptin drips... both were flowing at the same time, but the herceptin was flowing at about 1/12th the full rate..
once the taxol finished around 5pm, the herceptin was pumped up to its full 500ml an hour and we should be done within the next 15 minutes..

everything is going good, and trish seems to be handing this new treatment really great. she has not experienced any nausea this past week, although she did have some achiness but nothing that kept her and caden from going camping with trish's parents saturday-monday. trish and caden got home monday morning, and come evening time, we headed down to san jose for a bbq at my coworker kevran's house to celebrate the completion of my project at work...

this was the first time trish had a chance to meet my boss, jane, who introduced us to the Healing Touch program at stanford. kevran cooked us a great dinner of bbq'd steak, chicken and veggies.. and caden had a great time exploring the palatial play structure Kevran has in her backyard, as well as playing with her daughter, kiley..


anyhow... thats the report from chair B6... her treatment is done, nurse mary just flushed trish's port with heparin and its time to go home and see caden...


10am - 6pm ugghhh... i hope the valet parking is still open..