er... ugghh...

its been another interesting week at the oak ridge estate.

trish has been fighting the nausea, fatigue, the cookies & the #2's all week...

this past friday night / saturday morning everything kinda caught up with trish.
after a couple hours of dry heaving and the runs, it was about 1:30am when we decided to take a trip to the ER at sequoia hospital.

not having much of an appetite, nor the desire to drink a lot of fluids... coupled with the fact that diarrhea and throwing up is robbing her of her fluids, trish needed some hydration.

if it woulda been 1:30pm in the afternoon, we would just make a trip to dr. carlson's office, but since it was the middle of the night, we headed to the ER at sequoia hospital....
i wouldn't call it an emergency, but there just isn't too many options on where to go in the middle of the night... so sequoia it was, a whole 1.2 miles away.

so trish made it in right before the 2am last call... her cocktail of choice was double sodium chloride IV and a shot of zofran. about 30 minutes into it, trish was catching up on some much needed sleep in her hospital bed. we got home around 4:30am, and back to bed we went.

trish was feeling better over the weekend, but took it easy around the house and didn't do much.

so aside from fighting the side effects, the week was pretty much spent watering the garden in the backyard, and hanging out in the front yard while caden was playing in his little swimming pool.

so today... back at the stanford ITA for our 10:30am appointment.
we were actually out of the house around 9:50am, and arrive well before our scheduled appointment... amazing...

trish took the stairs up again, and for those that haven't seen the staircase here at stanford... is pretty damn big, so trish gets a gold star for making it all the way up on her own.

this weeks special guest stars are julie and eric. with the entourage today, trish was setup with a suite that is right across from chemo-buddy christine and her husband russ' suite.

by 11:00am we were hanging out at the suite, and nurse mary collete drew blood for trish's blood work.

the herceptin IV began at noon, and should be done no later than 1pm today.


thanks for checking in...

julie, trish & eric

12:30pm update
----------------------------

herceptin done... the port has been flushed with heparin, and we are outta here...
trish wants a burger, so its off to the goose we go

the maiden voyage...
caden breaking in the master bathroom tub last night...
FINALLY...

blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 5.9
is 2.14

* although its lower than it has been, 2.14 is still within the normal range of 1.7 - 6.7
trish had an ANC of 3 before her very first treatment in april.


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 26.1

* this is the lowest the red counts have been, and probably are contributing to trish's fatigue.
considering she hasn't eaten much in the last couple weeks, its not a suprise that they are down from her standard of 29.
dr. carlson has previously said that a blood transfusion would be a consideration if her counts dipped down around 22.

trish had a burger today, and we are gonna try and keep her eating this week and see how high we can increase the reds before we meet with dr. carlson next tuesday morning.



we are really hoping that the next 7 days will be unlike the last coupla weeks.

in hindsight, we are thinking all the nausea/cookies/two's aren't just a result of the chemo alone, but because trish has been a little sick as well.

caden has been a little sick lately...
i was sick last week, and im thinking it wasn't food poisoning, since no one else got sick from the food.
trish's brother, wife and son have all been hit by this bug as well..

so... hopefully she can kick this, take a nice long bath and have a decent week going forward...

the 3 day walk begins this saturday with opening ceremonies at the cow palace at 6:30am, and trish plans on being there.


thanks for reading..