Rough Treatment Day

We anticipate mood swings and anxiety the night before treatment days. Amanda did better yesterday as she has a better understanding of what Friday treatment days are all about. But, it still proves to be a very rough parenting day compared to what is normal. So I'm relieved to get her to bed only to be woken at 3:00 am; she's crying that she wants to eat. This goes one for quite a while. 6:00 am; She tantrums about wanting to eat for about 45 minutes until she actually wears herself out back to sleep. Come to find out she's been raiding the pantry before I wake up, so that's why she was so upset. I NEVER expected one of our greatest cancer challenges to be about wanting to eat excessive amounts of food! I would rather this than vomiting though. She lamented most of the trip down to primary's and into the building about not being able to eat and how much she hates cancer. Finally, the child life specialist distracted her and she magically was fine. I was impressed with how brave she was accessing her port. The needle did not seem to bother her much. Once she knows what to expect she seems much better at coping. Things were great until they could not get her line to draw blood, which is part of administering chemo. All the progress we have made about being brave may be destroyed now. The nurse tried for over 30 minutes to get it to work. This involved moving her needle around in an effort to get better access to her vein. I knew it had to be uncomfortable just from watching it. They pulled it out and tried another access needle. Her skin was still slightly numbed, but noticeably red and tender. And she progressively got more annoyed (and hungry). The nurse finally decided getting somebody more experienced was a good idea after 20 minutes (kind of a no brainer to me). The two nurses tried together putting her in different yoga style positions. She was beyond upset, but it finally worked. After that, going to RTU to be put out for a bone marrow aspirate seemed like a piece of cake. She was so happy to get away from the nurses and get her "nap" over with so she could eat. She's now happily doped up on pain medicine and full of processed food craving goodness. I reminded her that it's the longest time before we have to go back. She's now much happier. And the good news for us is that she is progressing well with her treatment. Her levels are dropping (which I'll explain after my fatigued body recovers in a few days). But for now, everything is going to plan with no setbacks - yeah!!!