Once we knew that Clara's tumor was cancerous, and even though they had gotten it all out, there was still a chance that there were cancer cells left, and the only way to get rid of them would be chemotherapy. Let me tell you what, I was not thrilled by this option! It was devastating, but it needed to be done, at least that's what the doctors were telling me. Obviously no one wants to give there child chemo, especially an infant. David and I did research on alternative treatments, well David mostly did. I was in denial about what was going on, and couldn't accept it. I knew we had to do chemo but wanted to believe that all this wasn't real.
In Denver the doctors wanted to start Chemo the day after Clara's pathology came back. Now remember Clara had been not even a week out of surgery. She went in on the 24th of May my parents anniversary, and we found out she had cancer the 29th of May, mine and David's anniversary. Her surgeon told us that she could put in Clara's broviac, which is a tube in her chest to where they could draw blood, and give her, her chemo, and it was another surgery she would have to go through. We then sat down and met with the Oncologist and he told us Clara would have to get four rounds of chemo, and there would be three chemo's, Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin. A round of chemo would be the combination of the chemo's over a five day period, and she would only get Bleomycin on the first day. As the Oncologist was talking to us all I could think of and wanted to do was grab my baby and run, instead I asked for more time. More time so our sweet baby could heal from her surgery she had just had! More time for her to gain weight, just more time to get to know our little girl, out side of the hospital. Dr. Graffi, the oncologist was very understanding, and we had until the June 18th before we would have to be back. We got to go home the next day, May 30th. we enjoyed our baby Clara. I was very grateful that my mom came back to Billings with us. It felt like we had been going a thousand miles an hour since Clara was born, and for the first time since May 15th, I feel like we got a chance to catch our breath. It was far from it all being over but it was a good break for all of us, especially Clara.
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| This was right after she got her Broviac put in |
We went back to Denver the 17th of June. Clara went in for surgery the next moring, and it went great! The surgery didn't even take an hour, and she was nursing two hours afterwards. Chemo started the next day, and it felt like we were in hell. I bawled watching them hook her chemo up to the pump. It took about three hours to give Clara her chemo, and she responding just like any person would. She would throw up, she couldn't get comfortable so she couldn't sleep, and so she would sceam because she didn't feel good and because she was so tired. David and I took turns walking her and rocking her, trying to soothe and comfort her, but not much helped. When I would nurse her, that would comfort her enough and get her to sleep. Then I would hold her and rock her, until I could barley keep my eyes open, and I would try to lay her down, but the screaming would just start right back up again. David and I figured out that it was the steriod they were giving her that would aggervate her so much. It seemed like that affected her more than the chemo.
We were grateful when saturday June 24th came because we got to go home. Clara's blood counts were good, and she was eating good enough so we could leave. And to top it off it was also her Grandma Mary Kay's birthday, so we had even more to celebrate! The drive home was long, and Clara did great for the 8 hour road trip, sleeping most of the way. Recovery was hard. Mary Kay came and help us with Clara, and I am so grateful and love her for all of her help. So not only did we have to try to help Clara get through her nausea and irritablity. We had to learn how to flush her central line (her broviac) give her medicine through it, and change her dressing that covers the insertion point of the tube into her chest, and be sterile while changing the dressing.
It took Clara about two and a half weeks to start feeling better,and it was awful. I wanted to try to start cutting back on her anti nausua medicine, because they tell you to, but it was way to soon. Clara was getting sick after each feeding, so we decided to give her all the medicine at once. So even though we were giving her medicine to settle her stomach, we should have waited until her stomach was calm to give her more. We didn't wait and she threw up all of her medicine. It was thick and sticky and she couldn't get it all out on her own and wasn't breathing, David turn her over and started thumping her back and I ran out of the room to get her nose sucker. She didn't breathe for what seemed like hours but it was probably only 2 seconds, but those were the longest two seconds. When I ran back into the room, David gave her one last thump on the back and she got the part of flem/mucus out of her throat that was preventing her to breathe and just was screaming. I had to suck out the crud from her nose and her throat. After that chaos things seemed to get a little better each day. By the time she was feeling really good guess who started smiling!! I tell you what, she has the best smile I have ever seen in my life! It melt my heart every time, and David and I work so hard to get her to smile again. She like making us look like lil' fools!
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| And this is her after her first chemo. she sleep a lot which terrified me. |
