Treatment 1 Down

Today began Jesse’s radiation treatments. Her time was set for 3pm. No food from midnight on. No clears after 11am. She didn’t do well this time. I figure that seeing her normal doctor is what sent her in orbit.

We had her normal clinic visit at 11am.

At clinic when Jesse saw her doctor she asked if she could eat, not realizing that he wasn’t the doctor that could give her eating permission. When he looked at her apologetically, Jesse bawled. After we calmed her down, Jesse and I hung around waiting for her time to be at Day Surgery.

While we waited Jesse’s nurse and I talked about what could be done to help other kids facing radiation from having really late times. Of course, we came up with nothing. It would be nice if the oncology clinic could have their own anesthesiologist, but there isn’t probably enough profit in that.

At a little before 2pm, Jesse and I traveled up to the 3rd floor. When we arrived in Day Surgery, they were basically packing up for the day. The lady told me to sign in on the clipboard ( kind of hard when the page is gone… I am getting a definite lesson in customer service… ). When she realized that we couldn’t sign in, she saw us immediately. I had to reminder her that Jesse needed to be in isolation because of the stem cell transplant.

When we walked back towards a room, one of the nurses stopped us because she had already shut the computer in that room down. The room we were directed to irritated her because she’d shut the computer down in that room to. I am pretty sure I irritated the mess out of her because I felt like she was trying to bully me and she was displeased that I was balking on changing Jesse’s clothes. After our go round on the clothes, I noticed she wasn’t the nurse to come see us anymore. Good riddance. I am not interested in being bullied especially when I have not had anything to eat since 7:30pm the night before myself.

Luckily we had the same anesthesiologist. I did have to ask everyone to wear gloves when the handled Jesse’s CVL. Why that is not hospital wide policy blows my mind.  I’m tired of looking like freakazoid mom…. but I will continue to do so because I love my daughter and that CVL line goes right into the blood stream. And I don’t want bacteria in there.

We made the trip over to the radiation machine. The radiation machine looks totally different from the doughnut shaped CT Scan machine. I was really concerned that Jesse might freak, but made a point of saying that the table would carry her through the tunnel. She accepted this and happily hopped up on the table.

They had some trouble linking the computer images to the machine, but after a few minutes all was set. This radiation treatment took about 30 minutes because of getting the machine placement correct.

We made the trip back to PACU, and I went to the waiting room until the nurses were ready for me. As I was waiting Jesse’s oncology doctor came into the room to talk with another mom and dad. I wish I could have talked to them, but you never know where you are intruding. I wasn’t interested in knowing what was wrong, I just wanted to tell them I was sorry and if there was anything I could do please let me know.

Jesse awoke around 4:30pm, and we left around 5:15pm.