Last night Marion asked me if I thought that everything we "needed" to take to the hospital would fit in the car. I laughed, assuming that she was joking. However I overlooked that fact that Marion is working on the assumption that they don't have supermarkets in Nijmegen and that we are actually 1200km from home and/or that she's not planning to shop for the next six weeks. The load in the car was large enough that of the seven seats, only three were left for passengers.
Nevertheless we arrived at the hospital on time, dumped a load of stuff at the McD house and took the rest to Kay's room. She has a large room (fortunately) facing south with a beautiful view of the nearby woods. We quickly settled in and the day started in routine manner. Smears of mouth, nose, etc, etc, were taken to test for any bugs that Kay may be carrying. 1001 different people looked at the rash she has on her chest and all pronounced that, although they didn't know what it was, it definitely wasn't Shingles. Eventually even the Prof dropped by and gave a nod for the kick-off.
Around 3pm the first chemo was started. Kay is connected to a veritable maze of plumbing and all the lines have to be continually flushed. Also the correct line must be used for the chemo. Once this was sorted out the chemo pump was started. The nurse left the room, promising to return within a few minutes. However, within minutes of starting the push, Kay started complaining of stomach pains. This rapidly escalated to a full blow allergic reaction, sweats, pains, swelling, etc. I had Marion hit the panic button and within seconds the room was full of people. This is the second time that we have had to do this and I can't say that it's much fun.
The push was immediately stopped and anti-allergic medicine was given. Kay slowly recovered from the reaction, but Marion & I were both pretty shocked by the rapidity of what happened - and the slap-in-the-face reminder that we're not here for a holiday.
After some debate, it was decided to start the chemo again at a lower flow rate. But unfortunately a new dose of chemo had to be ordered because the lower flow rate meant that the initial dose would overrun its use-by time limit. The new dose came in a lower concentration, the same measure of chemo in a larger volume of fluid. Instead of running it in at 230 ml/hr it would be started at 40 ml/hr, then stepped over over a period to 115 ml/hour. This means that instead of the original 3 hours it will take around 10 hours before the push is complete. How this affects tomorrow's schedule remains to be seen: the same chemo is also planned for tomorrow afternoon.
Kay is now sleeping and the chemo is running in at 115ml/hr. She has been given anti-sckness and anti-allergy drugs, so I hope that we can have a restful night. We'll see.
The photo below was taken at the start of the chemo this afternoon.
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