Drip... drip... drip... round ten!

After getting good news on the platelet front yesterday, we got up this morning and started our day with a purpose... to go garage-saling! Since Dr. Whiting decided to do round 10 on an off-week, all of the usual early-morning appointments were full, so we had the morning to kill before heading to the big city for treatment.

We hit a few sales on the way to the 10:25 ferry this morning, and then checked in around 11:30 for port placement and blood-work with Kelsey. As a bonus today, there were licensed massage therapists in the lobby giving free 10-minute hand massages to patients and caregivers. Gidget needed this in a major way.

We met with Dr. Whiting at 1 o'clock to go over blood-work, test results and new symptoms. No big news on the blood work, but Gidget told Dr. Whiting about her fairly substantial increase in peripheral neuropathy. She can't feel the outside of each of her feet or the first 2-3 toes. Her fingers have become increasingly numb, and now when she extends her arms in front of her, her hands tingle (like when your foot falls asleep) and she loses all feeling in her fingers. Not good. Dr. Whiting initially said that it was time to drop the Oxaliplatin from Gidget's regimen entirely, but then he said that we could try dropping it just for round 10. If the neuropathy symptoms improve in two weeks, they'll add the Oxaliplatin back to the regimen at a reduced dose fore the final two rounds.

Acey scored some clay in the gift shop, and immediately set about creating creatures pulled from his wild and crazy imagination. He gave Dr. Whiting one of them for his office, and pinned another to the bulletin board in the exam room. But he kept version 1.0 because "the artist always keeps the original," or so I'm told. Acey wanted me to let you all know that "Happy is his name, and laughter is his game!"

We checked in for infusion at 2 o'clock and were assigned Dan for Gidget's infusion nurse. We met Dan one Sunday a while back when we were here to have Gidget's pump disconnected, and he's a really neat guy. He designs/sews his own scrubs... very cool.

So, it's official, here we go with round 10... YAY, CHEMO!

Since Gidget isn't getting the Oxaliplatin drip (that's the all-day part of the regimen), this was a shorter day than usual. Dan gave here a quick shot of long-lasting anti-nausea meds and (after waiting and waiting for the chemo drugs to be delivered from the pharmacy), he hooked up her pump, and sent us on our way. We're out of here!