Confections For Cats

Doxorubicin, The Red Devil in VDC Chemo for a rare soft tissue Sarcoma cancer. When I saw the Doxorubicin, I thought of that woman, in the IR who was so distraught about her son. I started to get that sense of seeing myself coming and going in the caregivers and family of the other patients.  This chemo can be toxic to the heart, there is a lifetime limit of doses. I was told 6 doses for Mathew. I suppose when you are hoping for a year or two of survival, long-term effects of treatments is a secondary concern.  I wasn’t afraid of it yet. It wasn’t until I saw how Mathew reacted to this chemotherapy and thought about the potential for cardiac toxicity. It was a long day, Mathew slept as much as possible. I read, drank coffee, and went to get us something to eat from the cafeteria.  When the treatment was through, I packed up the rolling bag and pushed Mathew in the wheelchair out to the valet to bring our car. On the way home Mathew complained a...

First VDC outpatient chemo The routine for this was to leave our home early (it was a 40-minute drive), go to the blood draw area to have blood work, then to the Sarcoma Clinic to see Dr. Reed, and then to the infusion center at Moffitt. There was usually a wait in the very large waiting room there. Then Mathew would be called back and pre-chemo meds would start, then the chemo, all of which took hours.  This was the first time, we were told it would possibly take as long as 8 hours or more. We had no preconceptions, there was no way to compare the 5-day inpatient I.E. chemo to the VDC. Each patient had a small area, the chair they sat in, a chair for family or caretakers, and room for nurses, and I.V. poles. Like a miniature hospital room.  This is when I started taking a rolling bag to accommodate the Monkey Bag, Mat’s journal, a book for me, snacks and my laptop.  At this time, Mathew still needed a wheelchair.  From Mathew’s Journal I t...

After the family meeting with Dr. Reed, he had the results of Mathew’s blood work taken earlier that morning. He told Mathew that he will go to the infusion center to receive his first outpatient VDC chemo. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we didn’t realize that this was the routine for these Sarcoma appointments. So Mathew was not mentally prepared for that chemo. Dr. Reed told him to come back tomorrow. “A day or two won’t make a difference,” he told us. Dr. Reed is one of the nicest people and an excellent doctor. I know he was just trying to assure us that it was okay to delay the chemo but when he said that I thought, “It doesn’t matter.”  I was still in let’s hurry, let’s push and muscle through the process to get to the other side. I hadn’t yet learned to live in the process.  So the subject of the Sperm Cryopreservation came up and that Mathew had not been able to provide a sample before his first chemo. Dr. Reed asked him if he wanted to try again since we...