November 19, 2009

Thursday Evening
November 19, 2009

Lynn has just wrapped up the third round of chemotherapy. Things went pretty well. She was able, once again, to avoid the confusion brought about by one of the chemo ingredients. And, she did not have any of the nausea sometimes common for people taking those chemicals. However, she has had some issues with her IVs. It is getting increasingly difficult to find good veins for her IV. This time, she had some problems with the first one that was put in. It got a clot in it, and the flow of her IV had to be slowed down. They took that one out, and put in a new one. Fortunately for her, she had higher blood pressure than she usually did, and it was much easier to get a good stick. Never-the-less, for the first time, there was talk about a shunt, a permanent inlet into her blood stream. It would be in place for the rest of her treatment. Maybe it would make things easier to get the drugs in her, but it sometimes has a habit of getting infected.

Lynn's heart seems to be doing pretty well, although she still has the persistent cough. Dr. Jordan still is tweaking the Lasic, as she gains and loses lots of weight, all fluid, during short periods of time. The cough, interestingly enough, goes away when she is in the hospital. Only when she leaves does it return. She thought at first that we had mold in the house or something, but it is probably due to a combination of her moving around more and of getting away from the relatively dry air found in medical facilities.

Barb and Bob came by with dinner tonight - It was great seeing the two of them - they go to our church and are in our small group. They brought pot roast: Lynn's favorite. She has lost some of her ability to taste, so having something really good was a big help. Over the week-end, we had lots of visitors, and have had all kinds of people drop by to see if they could help us out. It has really been terrific. The first week after the chemo is always the hardest, as Lynn is the weakest. We try to stay away from public places where she can pick up germs and bugs, so she cannot get out. Having visitors boosts her spirits.

The next round of chemo begins in December. After that, there will be one in between Christmas and New Years. We wrap things up in March...just about the time this whole saga got started. Hope I won't have anything to write about after that!