We got to meet with Dr. Hansen today. Yay! It was nice because I had a question for him. Kayla had a dentist appointment scheduled with the office that did her dental surgery a year ago. We have gone in for one 6 month check-up since then and this one would be the second. The annoying thing is that the office is in Boise and she can't even get her teeth cleaned because of her port. There is a huge risk of infection with dental work. So, basically, she can get x-rays (IF she cooperates with that) and the dentist looks at her teeth and we go. The trip to me seemed like a waste. When the dental office called me to confirm her appointment, the lady asked if Kayla would be coming pre-medicated. Uh, no, she would not. At her last check-up, the dentist said he would talk to Dr. Hansen about Kayla getting her teeth cleaned. She would have to have an antibiotic before getting the cleaning done. Well, I'm pretty sure that he didn't talk to Dr. Hansen and I told the lady who called that as far as I know, Kayla is not supposed to get her teeth cleaned.
I'm going to continue on this tangent for a minute. . . this morning as I am getting ready to head to the clinic, the dentist office called me - checking about cleaning again. I told her, again, that Kayla could not have her teeth cleaned, but that I was going to see her doctor today and that I would double check with him. So, she wanted me to call her back and let her know once I found out. Okay. . . then she called back a minute later saying that Kayla's appointment was actually with a different dentist than the one who did the dental surgery so, we could change her appointment to the afternoon in order to meet with the other dentist. Sigh. . . this appointment has been scheduled for 6 months and the day before they realize this and want to reschedule. I had already made babysitting arrangements for Benson and we had other plans in Boise right after Kayla's appointment. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the dentist that Kayla was scheduled with was the same one we saw 6 months ago, which was not the one who did the surgery, but I was okay with seeing him again. After all, he's just going to look at her teeth. So, the plan was still for me to call after we met with Dr. Hansen.
So, back to our visit with Dr. Hansen. . . I told him about the dentist appointment and about how they wanted to clean her teeth and how I kept telling them no, they couldn't. He completely agreed with me. It was not worth the risk to have her teeth cleaned. Okay. So, next question I asked. . . how long did we need to keep going back to this dental office?? We were set up with them originally by the clinic because this dentist had, whatever they're called, "privileges," to do dental surgery in the hospital downtown. Great, we got that done. Now, could I just take her to our local family dentist that is five minutes away from our house? Dr. Hansen said that we could do whatever we preferred. He said to check with our family dentist to make sure he is comfortable seeing someone in Kayla's situation, but if he is, then great, go ahead. Yay! That was a load off of my stress bundle. (I called and cancelled the appointment right after our visit and told them I was going somewhere else. . . in a nice way, of course.) Her port would be out soon and she will be fine getting her teeth cleaned in another 9 months or so.
Speaking of getting her port out, we talked about that for a bit. From our conversation, I think I understood that Kayla would get her port taken out about 3 months after she is done with chemo. This will be good because there is a lot of risk involved with having a central line, but she has done so well with not having any problems with it. The downside is that she will need to go in for Pentamadine once a month for about 6 months after treatment is over and she'll have to just get a regular IV in the arm. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. She is so used to having her port accessed that it is no big deal anymore. We may face more challenges when she goes in for future MRIs and has to use the gas mask because she doesn't have her port anymore. Hopefully, she will mature a lot between now and then!
Anyway, that was pretty much our visit. We spent the rest of the day in the chemo suite watching a movie, eating lunch, reading, and working on a Mother's Day project. Kayla spent most of the day doing that with Miss Jenn and another little girl. When she was done, she came and told me that she had made a new friend. Yay! Sadie was a sweetie as usual and the nurses always comment on how good she is.
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