Two Trials

Yesterday, Maddie was able to continue her treatment; her blood levels had stabilized from the dip last week.  Maddie was scheduled for a lumbar puncture (LP) at 10am at Maine Med.  The LP requires that she be NPO (nothing by mouth) after midnight on the day of the procedure.  Maddie has had several (5-6) of these LPs; she knows the drill.  The night before the procedure, we talked about the test and not being about to eat until afterward.  We usually dream about what we are going to have afterwards and it commonly includes french fries and ketchup.

At around 3am, she woke up sick to her stomach and vomited in her bed.  Brad and I quickly whisked her up, threw her in the bath, changed her clothes, and put new sheets on the bed.  Fortunately, she was able to fall back to sleep; however, she awoke in the morning feeling lethargic and still a bit nauseated.

We needed to “put tubey in” before we left, as she tends to do better if Brad and I access her port, instead of having someone she not familiar with at the hospital do it.  You see, when we go for LPs, we go to the Day Surgery Unit of Maine Med, so we often see different nurses and anesthesiologists each time.  One of the doctors or Chris, the nurse practitioner, from the Maine Children’s Cancer Program always perform the LP, which helps make Maddie feel more comfortable.

She slept the entire way to the hospital, only waking when I turned the satellite radio from the kids station to the Big 80s.  At the hospital, Dora couldn’t even raise her spirits; I knew she was feeling pretty crummy.  Chris and I talked about how she was doing, her stable lab values, and we ultimately decided to go ahead with the procedure.

The purpose of the LP is twofold; a sample of the cerebro-spinal fluid (csf) is removed and analyzed for the presence of “blast” cells, and she receives chemotherapy (methotrexate) through the LP into the csf.

She awoke very thirsty in the recovery room with Chris, Mary (her nurse), and me by her side.  She chugged down lots of water, but was still a bit nauseated.  We decided to give another anti-emetic (aka – anti-vomit medicine) before we hit the road.  She did want to stop by the cafe for something to eat, but, when her cheeseburger and french fries arrived, she didn’t touch it.  We packaged up the cheeseburger and I stuck it in my bag; I was just imagining how tasty that would be several hours down the road (yuck!).  When we got to the clinic, Daisy’s radar drew her right toward the bag and the cheeseburger.  Before I knew it her face was nuzzling open my bag. We managed, however, to stop her before she ate my bag and the cheeseburger.  Maddie perked up as she got to feed Daisy a few treats.

“Finding Nemo” was Maddie’s movie request du jour, and she slowly perked up as the movie went along.  While we were meeting with Dr. Rossi or Jay, she would interject, “Oh, watch, this where Nemo gets caught in the net” or some other movie play-by-play.  Maddie received chemotherapy (vincristine) through her port, and Jay gave us our new supply of oral chemo meds (methotrexate and 6MP) and our schedule for the next several weeks.  It was a long day, but ultimately we were glad that Maddie got a good report and that her spirits had risen as the day wore on.