Cycle 1, Day 1: Cyclophosphamide and Topotecan + Blood Transfusion

Well, the time has come to start Kaylee’s Chemo treatments.  Days 1-5 will consist of 30-60 minutes of Cyclophosphamide  and 30 minutes of Topotecan.  Both Chemo meds are IV Infused.  Okay, so before I even think about going forward with this update, lets get one thing straight… from now on, I’ll refer to Cyclophosphamide as “Cyclo” and Topotecan as “Topo”.  I can’t even pronounce these words, let alone remember how to spell them.  Oh yea, wait until the coming months when you see the names of those Chemo meds… yikes!

So as we stand right now, it looks like Kaylee will be going home on Wednesday sometime.  She ends her first round of Chemo treatments on Tuesday, but the doctors want to evaluate her progress and make sure everything looks good before sending us home.

Her treatments started just before 3:00pm today, with some blood draws and some medicine to help her stomach – I call it the “No Pukie” medicine.

My dad and I left the hospital for a few hours to get some fresh air and run some errands.  By the time I got back to the hospital, Kaylee was fast asleep, and Day 1 of her chemo treatments was complete.  The only thing left was the Blood Transfusion I mentioned in the last post.  It’s now 11:20pm and the transfusion is just about finished.  I can already see the color returning to her face and lips.

Carol did tell me that Kaylee said that her stomach was upset, and it felt like she wanted to throw-up.  Luckily, that never happened, and she just went right to sleep.  I know the nurses gave her some medication to help combat the belly ache, but I don’t know what that medication was – right now.

Day 2 starts tomorrow at 3:00pm again, but she will not need the blood transfusion.  Tomorrow morning we’ll also start giving her an oral medication called: Difulcan.  This medication is to be taken once a day at around the same time every day.  Because we had to do the blood transfusion, and she was sleeping so well, they decided to skip the first dose, and give it to her in the morning.

We also skipped one other oral med; Bactrim that she’ll take every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  This week she’ll take it on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Well, Day 1 is complete.   She’s still sleeping – even with the nurses coming in and out doing vitals and equipment checks.

Until tomorrow (in a few hours) we love you all and thank you for all your support and love.  Hugs and kisses from Kaylee.