Our first treatment - Part I

Desmond had his first chemo treatment this week. We arrived at MSTI at 11:30 to have our labwork done and Desmond's port accessed. Every time we need chemo we will go to MSTI first to have Des' blood tested - if his counts are low, treatment may have to be delayed while his body heals. Our schedule said that we'd get our tests done at MSTI at 11:30 and then check into the hospital at noon. However, we didn't get checked in and moving through MSTI till about 12:30. We passed the time playing Connect 4 (Des doesn't quite get the concept of diagonal lines...or losing).

St. Lukes has staff members with the job title Child Life Specialist. Their job is to help the children understand what experiences they will have in the hospital, and to help them feel more comfortable. The Child Life Specialist came out with a doll and some tiny medical equipment to show Desmond how they would be accessing his port. He didn't want to look at the CLS; rather, he kept turning his head into my body and hiding his face. He got angry a few times and kind of copped an attitude, and even lashed out at the CLS phsyically, but she let him know quickly that kind of behavior would not be accepted, which I appreciated.

We went back to the MSTI Pediatric lab area, which is definitely designed for kids with fun books, toys, child size tables, etc. He sat on my lap and the CLS tried to distract him from the port access procedure, which will be a fairly quick process when Desmond gets comfortable with it. When the port is being accessed, everybody is supposed to wear a mask, but Desmond refused to do it so he turned his head to the side and I held it there, away from the port. He cried for a few minutes, because the spot where the port was placed is still sensitive from the surgery last week, but overall he did a great job and the nurses said that it will get easier as time goes on. Once his port was accessed and bandaged, he received a Treasure Token - a token to put in a vending machine to receive a special toy (bouncy ball, stickers, etc.).

We then met with the doctor to go over the plan for the day, and waited for the hospital to get a room ready for Desmond. We finally got over to the hospital and into our room around 2pm. Each patient has their own room, and we were located in the oncology wing of the Children's Hospital. Des got hooked up to an IV pole and started getting fluids. The nurses kept track of his urine output and also to monitor something called specific gravity. His urine had to be at a certain level of specific gravity before he was ready to get the chemo.

Keep posted for part II. This got longer than I expected!