5 down, 23 to go

trish had her 5th radiation session today.

so far her skin is doing fine, no redness or irritation yet.. but we expect it to catch up with her about 1/2 way through the remaining sessions.

it looks like from here on out, her appointments will be at 3:15pm which works out really good. caden begins nursery school next week, and as with his other classes (art, gym, etc) everything is in the morning...
so 3:15pm will allow trish to do caden fun time in the morning and radiation fun time in the afternoon while caden is down for his nap.

each appointment has been very quick, in and out in about 15 minutes.. a real nice change from the typical doctor appointments.


so far so good.. thanks for checking in

1 down, 27 to go

this evening was trish's first encounter with radiation...

we got to stanford around 5:30pm for trish's 5:45pm appointment.

at 5:40pm, trish's radiation specialist brought her to linear accelerator #11 to get her positioned and ready to.

i think it was 5:46pm when trish was done and heading back to the locker room to change.


we knew it would be relatively quick, but i think we were surprised at just how quick with went..

so far so good.. we picked up some of the recommended soap and lotion from the pharmacy on the way out, and headed back to our little guy that continues to leave his cookies laying around the house... several times.

trish is feeling a little better but not totally normal.
hopefully both of them will be soon.


thanks for checking in

more, more, more radiation planning... and toss in a dash of herceptin while you're at it

so yesterday, monday jan 12th, trish and i headed back to the folks downstairs for a follow up (3rd) radiation planning session..

basically the session was to double check the measurements and the plan they crafted last week.

trish was put under a machine that is similar to the radiation machine, but this was an x-ray machine... they check the measurements, double checked, and had dr. horst come in to sign off on everything. at the end, the radiation specialist, kerry, gave trish her third tattoo...

the tattoo trifecta is now in play.

trish woke up early yesterday morning feeling really crappy...
a little fever, sore throat, achy.. typical flu stuff.. so the planning session yesterday was pretty much a struggle for her, but she got through it. she rested up yesterday afternoon/evening and began feeling better.

she has been doing a lot lately, and i think bringing caden to birthday parties, art classes, gym classes, etc.. landed her with a little bit of the flu.

so we both went to sleep early last night to get caught up on some rest... then around 2am caden decided to start tossing his cookies.. so we got him out of his crib, and brought him in with us... an hour later, he was tossing again... all in all, we saw some cookies 4 times last night, in about a 5 hour span.
for good measure he tossed em again right before we left the house this morning to go back to stanford. so we got a sick little guy on our hands as well.

soo.. that brings us to today...
trish is feeling better than yesterday, but i think she would be feeling much, much better if she got even a little bit of sleep last night.

today is her standard 'every three week' dose of herceptin... to make it even more exciting, we have yet another, another, another, another radiation planning session today during the middle of the infusions. we arrived at stanford this morning at 9am for her infusion. she is currently hooked up to her typical pre-drugs, and when they are done, we need to head down to radiation at 10:30am for the final planning session.

todays session is basically to double check what they did yesterday.
yesterdays session was to double check what they did last week..

so its makes it a little better knowing that so much precaution is taken to make sure everything is perfect.

the first part of the double checking should take 30 minutes, and the next 30 minutes will be spent with the nurses going over skin care, diet, etc... that trish should abide to during the radiation treatment...

so hopefully that will be done by 11:30am, so we can get back upstairs to the infusion lab to start the herceptin infusion...

we had hoped they could start trish's herceptin, and we could go down to the radiation with trish's IV of herceptin in tow... but i guess the hospital has some crazy rule about walking around unattended with some crazy, powerful, toxic drugs hanging off of ya, so that plan was shot down quickly..

so...
its pre-drugs for now...
in about 1/2 hour we will head down to radiation...
about an hour after that we will head back up for herceptin..


another crazy day, but we are use to them...


more updates later



10:40am update:
-----------------------

part 1 of the radiation planning is done... trish got on the machine, got some xrays and met the team she will work with everyday... claire, elaine & kevin.

we just received the schedule for this week's radiation treatments...
wed: 5:45pm
thurs: 5:45pm
fri: 5:00pm

trish prefers an appointment around 1pm, but as things open up, our times will be shifted. as long as the appointments are in the afternoon, trish will be open in the mornings to bring caden to gym, art and preschool when it starts in a couple weeks.

we are now waiting to meet with the nurses to go over skin care, etc...



11:15am update:
----------------------
all done downstairs. we met with the nurse to go over some skin care soaps, lotions, deodorants, etc..
and now we are back in the ITA for trish's herceptin infusion. that should get going shortly, and we should be outta here in about 90 minutes..


1:00pm update:

-----------------------
all done, and we are home... trish is resting, and we will be back tommorrow at 5:45pm for trish's first encounter with the linear accelerator..


here is a link to stanford's radiation oncology site

below is a link to a video of what radiation "looks like"...
its like a big ol x-ray machine that hovers around you and stops at exact points to deliver the radiation. trish will be exposed to the radiation for less than a minute, the rest of the time is getting trish setup on the machine and properly placed.


http://cancer.stanfordhospital.com/forPatients/services/radiationTherapy/linearAccelerator/default?showVideo=fullsize

more radiation planning...

trish and i took our first trip of the new year over to stanford this morning.

for the first time we took the stairs... down...

the lower level of the cancer center is where the radiation department is located, and today was an appointment for a CT-scan and to get trish prepped for the radiation that will begin probably next wednesday.

jackie, one of the radiation specialists, brought trish in for a CT-scan of her torso. the CT-scan itself only took a few minutes, but jackie took some time to get trish 'fitted' for radiation. she had trish lay down on a bag of liquid styrofoam that slowly hardened to conform to trish's body. this mold will be used by trish for all her radiation treatments, and will allow trish's body to be precisely positioned for each of her 28 treatments.

dr. horst came in and took a pen and drew on trish exactly where she wanted reference points for the radiation. jackie followed up by giving trish her first tattoos ever... they are smaller than a pin head, but they are very important and will be used to align the machine during each of trish's radiation visits.

all in all, the day was pretty quick, smooth and painless.. well, except for the tattoos, trish may say otherwise.

we will head back to stanford next week on the 13th to finish up the planning process, and trish will begin radiation the following day, wednesday the 14th...


thats about it from here... happy new year