Yesterday we thought it would just be a quick appointment at Shands for another shot and some labs maybe. But no, they decided his hemoglobin numbers were down and they needed to give him a few units of blood. This would take hours, so I ran home and brought him lunch back and his iPod and book so he wouldn't be bored, and planned to come back to get him when he was done.
Not ten minutes after I left (to drive all the way to Alachua) they decided he had an obscure blood condition that meant they would have to go outside their blood bank to find a match for it. This could take a while and they said to just go away and come back the next day for both units at once. Of course I was gone so KD said he was pretty much stuck there regardless, so they scrounged the right kind of blood from somewhere (I don't even know if I want to know where from).
This of course dragged on all day. I was finally able to come get him just in time for rush hour which meant it took exactly 39 minutes to get out of the FREAKING parking garage. I am not exaggerating here. A full 39 minutes in the dang blasted parking garage going from level three to the ground level. Not that I'm still irritated by that or anything. &$#*&%@#!
Since they had the other unit of blood already, today was much smoother. Too smooth. I had barely dropped him off and gotten out to Alachua when he called to say he was done. So drive all the way back to Shands, drop him home and make sure he was settled, then all the way back to Alachua again. It's a good thing I don't mind driving.
The chemo shot makes him a bit sick and out of it, so KD's been kind of droopy and cranky this week again. Hopefully he gets time to recover since the last two weeks of the month are a different schedule of different shots. Once a week he gets a Vincristine IV drip, and twice a week he gets a shot of L-Asparaginase. These have their own fun side effects of course (like the Vincristine makes his fingertips tingle).
Those things sound kind of scary, but they're really not so bad. Vincristine is derived from the Madagascar periwinkle (family if Vinca, hence the name) and has been used historically as an herbal remedy. It's been used in cancer treatment since the '50s, which doesn't say much except they probably know it works by now, unlike other '50s miracle medicines that went down in infamy.
L-Asparaginase basically starves the cancer cells. Normal cells can make their own asperagine which is an enzyme, but ALL (his type of leukemia) cells do not make that enzyme; they use the floating enzymes in the blood. L-Asparaginase makes these cancer cells unable to grab the enzymes so they starve and die. Which is a good thing! Die you little bastards!
On that note, I'll leave you with a favorite portrait of the NEW & IMPROVED KD .... yes, that's a smile on his face!
1 comment:
And no F'n finger
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