Special K and the Scary Duck

If I said it has been a rough week that would be an understatement. Travis was scheduled to have a procedure (port placement/liver biopsy) completed on Monday morning and immediately after have his first round of Chemo. However, that was not quite how things went. We arrived at the hospital bright and early for Travis's procedure, they drew his blood and prepped him, giving him some fluids because he was dehydrated and then informed us that he wouldn't be having the procedure because his blood was too thin. His doctor decided to admit him to the hospital and see if they could get his blood where they wanted it to be for the procedure. We did have to wait for a little while until a bed opened up for him, however they began giving him an IV of Vitamin K to help thicken his blood immediately. Shortly after that he was admitted to the hospital and we just had to wait to see if the Vitamin K worked.

Hours passed and they tested his blood again only to tell us that they needed to wait a little longer and that Travis would have to spend the night at the hospital. Travis was exhausted and slept for the majority of the time that he was there. In the morning they determined that the Vitamin K (or Special K as Travis was calling it!) did not get his blood quite where they wanted it. Some frozen plasma was ordered and he was given two bags. After he was given the plasma he was ready for his procedure but we had to wait for a slot to open up. Travis went into his procedure at 3pm, it took about 2 hours for them to implant his port and complete his liver biopsy. Everything went smoothly and shortly after he was given the option to go home for the night, his first round of chemo would be in the morning. We came home to sleep and rest for a few hours before heading back to the hospital.

Wednesday morning we went to the Hematology/Oncology Clinic and Travis received his first found of chemotherapy. He was still pretty tired from the two days before but in fairly good spirits all things considered. We were given a binder full of information about chemo, mostly side effects and what we should look for. As the nurse went over all of the specifics which took about half an hour, Travis was in and out of sleep. I made it through pretty much the entire thing but ended up crying at the end...it was just a ton of information to take in. Travis opened his eyes and asked my why I was crying and I told him I was just overwhelmed, his response was typical...."Was there a scary duck? Did it have teeth?". That's the thing about Travis, despite all that is going on and how yucky he was feeling he was trying to make us laugh....and he succeeded!

A pharmacist came to to teach us about the pump that Travis would be wearing for the next two days and how it worked. It is essentially a small durable balloon that is filled with chemo. The balloon attaches to Travis's port via a long tube and can be carried with him at all times. The pump works using body heat so there is no battery, there is just one part of the tubing that needs to be against his skin to make it work.

Travis was in good spirits when we arrived home and was moving around more than usual. He rested for most of the afternoon and only had a few side effects from the chemo. The first was that he was coughing, just like when you get sick and you can't stop coughing. I ended up contacting the on call fellow to make sure that I could give him something and that the coughing wasn't anything serious. She informed me that I could give him cough medicine and just to keep an eye on his breathing and make sure he didn't have a fever. The second side effect is sensitivity to cold, so Travis was saying that anything that was very cold tasted funny.

Thursday went ok, although anxiety became a new concern. Travis has never had anxiety so it was pretty scary when he had his first anxiety attack that afternoon. Luckily the doctor had given us some meds to deal with such a situation. Friday we had to return to the clinic so that Travis could have his pump taken off and he needed to have some fluids because he was very dehydrated. We ended up staying for a few hours to get that taken care of.

Our weekend was quiet, Saturday Travis wasn't feeling that great so we had a low key day. He spent a lot of time resting and sleeping and trying to recuperate. Sunday Travis was feeling much better, we had some visitors over and Travis rested some more. We are hopeful that this week will be much more quiet and that we won't be spending as much time at the hospital!

#colonoscopy #coloncancer #hospital #vitamink #frozenplasma #liverbiopsy #port #chemo #anxiety