Day +1 - +5

I have found out a few things about Caitlin in the last few days
1. Be careful putting a thermometer in her ear when she's asleep,
    she must have been dreaming when the nurse put it in her ear and
    she took a swipe at her. (No harm done though)
2. She is a very graceful vomiter (more than one nurse has said this).
3. She has shown strength I never knew she had. Accepted what is happening
    to her without complaining. Things haven't been easy for her, but she still
    has a smile for whoever comes into her room. I am very proud of her.
4. She is a card shark!

Side effects of the chemo are starting to happen now, she has mucositis which
is inflammation and ulceration of the digestive tract. So she now has morphine
constantly and is also able to give herself a bolus when she needs more.
She has had two more platelet transfusions, one of them was today. Her NG
tube blocked last night and they couldn't unblock it so she had to have another
one put in this morning. They couldn't put it in until after her transfusion as her
platelets were too low. Caitlin wasn't very happy about having another one so
the nurse offered to put one in me!!! so I could see what it felt like. I was just
preparing myself for it but Caitlin said it was ok I didn't have to do it.
Since day 0 she has had two more lots of chemo, two more to go, then thats
the last of the chemo.
A big thank you must go to Jasmine and her family, you manage to put a smile
on her face everyday. Jasmine, Caitlin is lucky to have you as a friend.



 

Day -1 - day 0

Day -1

Because of all the fluids Caitlin has been getting to protect her bladder from the 

chemo, she has started holding onto fluid. She is starting to look like the Michelin man,

so they do what they do best and give her another drug to help get rid of it.

Works a treat though.

Because she has an unrelated donor she is at risk of graft vs host disease, so she has

now started taking anti rejection drugs. She will have to take these for a while yet.

Day 0  May 22nd

What a day! It almost didn't happen today! Someone from New Zealand (not sure who) went over

to Germany to collect the bone marrow that the donor kindly had harvested on Tuesday. 

This was a surgical procedure for her, and brought it back. It arrived in New Zealand at

10 am this morning, it then had to go to blood services to get the red cells taken out. This

took longer than expected. They don't like doing the infusion too late in the day, they said

if it wasn't going to be here by 7 pm it wouldn't happen until tomorrow morning. At 6.30 a man

arrived with the bag of fresh bone marrow and everything went to plan.

But first, this morning Caitlin needed a platelet transfusion and a blood transfusion. 

This is the platelet transfusion.

                 


           This is the blood transfusion

Caitlin with her new bone marrow

Here is the bone marrow going into their new home.

It can take around 10 - 14 days to show signs of new cell growth.

So now we wait!

The new hair do

This is Michaela on the left who cut Caitlins hair and Kelly on the right who painted Caitlins nails and did some window art. They are from Blaze hair in Newmarket.

 Michaela cut Caitlin's hair in stages, this is half way through.








And this is the finished product. She looks absolutely gorgeous!!

 

Ups and downs

Its been an up and down few days. Saturday night Caitlin got
quite sick and ended up vomiting up her NG tube, they left her
for the night but another one had to go in the next morning.
She is currently on 3 different antibiotics treating the infection in
her line, all is going well there.
Saturday night was her first night of another chemo, so from
12 oclock on saturday they started hyperhydration, this helps
protect the bladder from the chemo. That means she has a lot of
fluids going through her Hickman line. Everything going in, and
going out is now measured.
Doug and Logan came up for the weekend, Caitlin and Logan were
comparing notes. The scar on Logan's neck is longer than Caitlin's,
she told him they practiced on him. Logan managed to make Caitlin
laugh with his latex glove antics. He put one on his head and over
his nose then he blew it up with his nose. I tried putting the video
of  it on the blog but as it turns out I'm not that clever.
Today has been a big day, she is having two different types of chemo
and she got her hair cut. It was suggested we cut it, because it is
so messy when it does fall out, it ends up in your eyes and mouth and
all through your bed. Just really uncomfortable. I contacted a salon
and they were more than happy to come to the hospital and cut her
hair, and on their day off! Michaela and Kelly from Blaze hair arrived
with nail polish and purple hair colouring. Caitlin now has purple hair
on one side. It comes out after about 4 washes. I will put some photos
up later.
Today is another big day, she starts the day with a blood transfusion
we are just waiting for the blood to arrive. She is also having two types
of chemo again. Today is day -2, Thursday she gets her new cells!

NG tube insertion

Wednesday night Caitlin started vomiting, she got a fever and ended up
with tachycardia. Blood cultures were taken and it turns out she has an
infection in her Hickman line, they put her on antibiotics as a cover until
they knew what bug it was. Today they changed the antibiotic because
the bug was still growing. Then this afternoon they changed it again when
they got the results and they now know what it is. Caitlin's nurse today said
its the second time she has come across it in all the time she has worked here.
Today being a rest day from chemo, they decided to put her NG tube in. The trick
with this was to drink some water through a straw, it helps it go down. Caitlin did
very well getting this done.Tonight she starts getting fed through this as she has stopped eating.
She can drink but food is definitely off the menu. The dietitian has given her some
nutritional drinks, they taste nice.
I forgot to mention, Caitlin's room is the same one Logan was in, its the
good luck room!

 This is the NG tube before

This is the NG tube after, we may bling
it up a bit when she is used to it being
there. At the moment it feels strange at
the back of her throat.

First few days in hospital

Monday is called day -10, her first day of chemo. It took 2 hrs
to run its course. How its works is: Tuesday is day -9, Wednesday is day
-8 and so on until we get to day 0 which is the day Caitlin gets her
donor cells, then every day after that is day +1, +2 etc.
Today is her third day of this chemo, one more day to go then she
gets 1 rest day before the next one starts.
Today hasn't been that great a day for her, since about lunch time she
has been feeling quite unwell. All she feels like is juice.
One of the hospital school teachers came visiting today, just to introduce
herself, half an hour later she came back with some work for Caitlin to do.
That kept her occupied for a little while.
Her room is looking like her own now, we have put up some posters etc
giving it a person touch. I never thought I would ever be sharing a room with
One Direction

This is Caitlin getting her first round of chemo

   

This is how the chemo arrives, its always
in purple containers the nurses wear purple
gloves and gowns also

Our first few days

Wednesday started with a blood test, once the results came in we saw the doctor.
She checked Caitlin over, we discussed the treatment then went on our way.
Thursday we had to be back at the hospital at 7.30 am to prepare for surgery,
originally she was on the afternoon list but that was changed to first on the list
for the morning. At 8.45 Caitlin was put to sleep then at 10.15 I went with the
nurse to recovery to pick her up and take her to the ward where we had to
wait another 2 hours before we could go back to Ronald McDonald House.
The surgery went really well, she woke up really quickly. The recovery nurse
said she crawled to the top of the bed and it was lucky she was there or Caitlin
would have fallen out. The bed had sides but no headboard. Being in hospital
will be interesting as Caitlin is a sleep walker, we may have to chain her to
her bed. Friday we had to go back to the hospital to have her dressing changed,
I had to sign consents etc. So now we have the weekend off. Monday we
check into the hospital at 2pm to start chemo.

This is the Hickman Line, it went in through the jugular vein and ends up at the top of the heart.
Her medication will be given through this, also blood can be taken out of it.
Caitlins blood type is O-, her donor is A+. Caitlins blood type will change to her donors
blood type.

Time to pack

Boy time flies! January we had the delay, at the time 3 months sounded like
forever. But next week we go! We fly out Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday
morning Caitlin has her first appointment, bloods first though. Thursday afternoon
she goes into theater to have a Hickman line inserted. Friday is a pre-admission check.
She gets the weekend off, then Monday we check into Starship- (Club Med -ical)
when chemo starts. We stay at Ronald McDonald house until then.
Last week she had to have her viral serology done, this is where they test for
everything known to man kind! They took 8 tubes! She didn't feel a thing.
I suppose we should start thinking about packing...............