Olympic Gold

October 3, 2007

If the Olympic Committee offered an event that required stamina and endurance, patience, cheerfulness, scrupulous attention to detail, and the ability to walk miles carrying bags laden with puzzles, stuffed animals, homework packets, medical records, gatorade bottles, and general detritus, I would have medaled yesterday. And Olympic bling hanging around my neck wouldn't have felt better than the phone call from Erin's doctor (as I sat, unmoving, in the HOV lane on the way out of town), telling me that Erin was still stable (clear bone scan, stable CT scan) and that we could continue with the low-dose treatment plan that has given Erin such great quality of life.

For those of you who want the medical details:

Erin's blood numbers

ANC 2300
HGB 12.9
PLT 277,000, all normal.

Chemistries (including BUN and creatinine) all normal.

Liver panel all normal, save the AST, which was 2 points higher than normal, but which has been about double normal but trending downward for the past several draws. This means that cyclophosphamide isn't irritating her system and causing as much inflammation as etoposide did.

For those of you who want the play-by-play:

What Else Went Well:

• I had cunningly called last Friday and put my insurance co-pay and deductible on my credit card, so I wouldn't have delays checking in.
• Erin sucked her oral contrast down for her CT scan quickly and efficiently. We made up time and the CT scan happened as scheduled.
  
• Dr. Heidi Russell worked us in between our bone scan prep and our bone scan (about three hours earlier than our scheduled appointment) and already had the official CT report showing stable results.
• Sam and Erin entertained each other all day, churning between television, cards, computers, books, hand-held games, and chit chat.
• The gift shop, once again, proved well-stocked. I am waiting for the day that Erin goes in and can't find a single thing that she doesn't already have.
  

What Went Wrong

• Even though I had cunningly called ahead of time twice so that we could make the tight schedule between IV placement and CT prep, the IV placer was late, putting us half an hour behind schedule from the get go.
• The CT techs can't figure out why the IV contrast burns Erin so badly that she cries every time it is injected. It's so hard to ask her to lie still on the table, when she and I both know that she's about to be tortured.
• A new (and vigilant) nuclear medicine tech (and presumably a new radiologist) insisted on taking several extra series of bone scan shots of Erin's shins, knees, hands, forearms, and elbows, asking me things like "Has Erin ever broken bones?" (no), "Does she have scoliosis?" (no), "Has Erin sustained a trauma or blow lately?" (no). Erin has never had bone disease, so I never really worry about the bone scan. When he re-did her legs, I thought, "Oh, that's just some deep bruise from soccer." When he re-did her hands (twice), I thought, "Can't he see that she has an IV stuck in the back of her hand that would show the tracer brightly?" When he asked me about her back, I told him about her divot left over from surgery three years ago. I believed everything I said, but I thought having anomalies in the scans show up in all those places at once seemed unlikely. This caused me to obsess about potentially bad results for the next three hours.
• The endocrinologist couldn't tell us anything we didn't already know. She ordered more labs which I had anticipated. I had cunningly called ahead to ask about that possibility and had kept Erin's IV in place all day so that she wouldn't have to face another needle poke. Unfortunately, the lab refused to use the IV, scuttling my plan, and making Erin extremely angry.
• The extra labs, the extra flu shot opportunity, and the extra bone scans shots put us behind schedule getting out of town, but Erin and Sam still thought we could make it for most of soccer practice if I drove efficiently. Unfortunately, something stalled traffic on the 290 HOV lane leaving town, and it took 42 minutes to travel about four miles. After that, traffic eased, and we floated on down the highway--ultimately too late for soccer, but just in time for dinner and a beer night cap (for me, not Erin).