May 11, 2012
Back Home
I haven't updated the site in a couple of days because I've been away from my computer. Michelle had her second "PK" at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and I opted not to bring my laptop. What a PK means is that she takes her medicines, as she's been doing for over two weeks now, but with close monitoring of her blood to make sure it is being properly metabolized and looking for any signs of toxicity. It happened on day one and now again two weeks later. There are no more scheduled.
It all started Wednesday morning when we woke up at 4:30am and left the house at 5:30. Dad took care of getting the kids up and off to school. I dropped Michelle off at the hospital before 7am and went out to my Boxborough office. Aside from meeting with her oncologist, there wasn't a lot of reason for me to go into the hospital. PK's are a lot of waiting, even more than the typical chemotherapy port-based infusion. They set up an IV. They draw up initial blood. Michelle has a light breakfast. She waits an hour. She takes her pills. On a predetermined schedule they draw blood throughout the day. Luckily she had her netbook to watch "The Vow" and had her Kindle.
At the end of the day I left the office to pick her back up. Luckily I got some driving tips from two coworkers on how to avoid a portion of the downtown Boston stop 'n go by taking Soldiers Fields Road/Sturrow Drive. For me that tip was a huge win. I picked up Michelle and within ten minutes we were checking in at the nearby La Quinta Inn. They have a good rate for MGH patients. After we brought our stuff back up to the room, we went across the street to The Ninety-Nine Restaurant for a dinner. After dinner I also made a run to the drug store.
Thursday morning we head back to MGH for a couple hours of followup. They need data from the 24 hour point of monitoring. So another blood draw, removal of the IV, (yes, it was in overnight), a light breakfast, wait an hour, take the medicines again. From there we were dismissed. Luckily because it was 10:30am, traffic back to the house was gone.
There is some reason for hope. While we won't know for several weeks when Michelle has a followup CT scan in mid-June, the bloodwork is showing signs that it may be working at killing cells. It is a targeted therapy so we can hope that it is killing the malignancy. But as I've said before, we live test to test. Keep praying.
We got home in time to have another lunch with dad. He caught us up on the adventures with the children. Two issues while we were away. It's always embarrassing for parents to hear how your kids misbehave when you aren't there to keep 'em in line. But for the most part, things went well and we are very grateful he was here to watch over them. He even took them out to dinner Wednesday night for good report cards. That was a tradition we had when I was a kid and in school.
Sadly dad is heading back west this morning. We did our best to ask him to stay a bit longer. My nephew Andy has his Confirmation on Sunday and dad really wants to be there for it. I did my best to enjoy his presence Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon. I also had him choose an audio book from Audible.com. He chose The Candy Bombers and I ripped it into an MP3 CD for his long drive home.
There are several MGH visits of testing and monitoring in the weeks ahead, but all of them only take a handful of hours and do not need an overnight stay. Keep praying that the two drugs continue to stay well tolerated with minimal side effects and that they are effective at targeting the tumors that are trying to form.