Kayla was scheduled to go in for her MRI on Friday morning, the 6th of July and then go right over to the clinic afterwards for her chemo. But, on Tuesday, I got a call from the clinic asking if we would mind changing our appointment. Dr. Hanson really wanted to see Kayla since he hasn't seen her since our very first visit to the clinic. They had worked it out with his schedule to fit us in on Thursday instead of Friday. So, we decided to do that.
We went in on Thursday morning and did the usual thing (oh, and my mom came to town which was SUPER helpful). It was so nice to meet with Dr. Hanson. I like and trust his opinions and preferences about different things concerning Kayla's treatment. He is on the conservative side of everything, so he does not like to take any unnecessary risks. He told us that we have chicken for a doctor. :) But, I would rather her have a chicken for a doctor than risk taker.
I asked Dr. Hanson about the wart on Kayla's foot and told him that Marnie told us to go to a dermatologist and have it removed. His opinion was to just leave it be and let it go away on its own. That sounded good to me because it is one less appointment that we will have to go to! Dr. Hanson also wanted to get rid of the steroid because of the long term side affects it has. So, since I was able to get Kayla to take zofran at home last week (hallelujah!) he cut the steroid out completely and we are done with it. Yay!
I also asked him about cutting out fluids. Marnie said that they usually cut out fluids after the first month of treatment, but they hadn't cut any of Kayla's out because of the nausea and because she wouldn't take zofran orally at home. The fluids are partly to help with nausea and partly to protect her kidneys. Dr. Hanson's feelings on that were the fluids aren't hurting anything, so he doesn't really see a need to cut them out, it would be just for convenience in having a shorter visit. But, he also said that we won't know if her kidneys will do okay with less fluids until we cut out fluids and she starts to have damage done to her kidneys. So, in that way, he likes to err on the side of caution.
I was glad to hear all of these things that he feels because it gives me more of a knowledge base of where and what I want Kayla to be doing. If we are meeting with a different doctor with different opinions, like wanting to cut out a bunch of fluids or add in unnecessary medication, I want to be able to tell him or her what I would like to stick to what Dr. Hanson recommends (now that I know what it is).
So, her counts were good enough to do her fourth treatment in the maintenance phase. The next two weeks will be off weeks. We will go in next Thursday for a blood count check. If her counts are on the rise, then we won't have to come in the next week (whoa, what am I going to do?) we will just come back the week after to start her second cycle of 4 on 2 off weeks of chemo in the maintenance phase.
For the rest of the day, we colored, and colored, and colored some more. We ate lunch, watched a little bit of Snow White, colored outside on the patio, colored inside, took a little walk around the halls, and then she played a little with some stamps and Play Doh.
We left before her second dose of zofran (because we'd have to wait another hour or more). We were still there from 10AM until about 3:30PM- not including travel time (which is about 40 minutes each way). It was a long day.
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