Treatment Update

March 23 was Daddy's first exposure to the Hem/Onc Clinic in person; however, it was a nice quick visit since all we had to do was access Samuel's port for lab work then GO HOME! All in all, great day :)

This week's treatment was a bit more, um, "eventful".

When accessing Samuel's port for the first round of his treatment cycle, the quick entry worked great, but Samuel began screaming in pain as soon as Nurse Morgan injected the sodium chloride into his IV in order to clean out his port catheter. It turned out that Samuel had a significant tear in his catheter tubing which caused leakage of the fluid into his internal tissue, etc. (ie. "OUCH").

We were sent down to Interventional Radiology for a special dye scan to determine the location of the leak + to provide the docs with details so they could make a decision about repairing or replacing the port entirely. Ultimately, they determined the entire port needed to be replaced and rescheduled the beginning of Samuel's next treatment cycle until next Monday because the medications would be too harsh to inject intravenously in his arm. We were scheduled for surgery on Wednesday and sent home to hang out 'til then.

While the initial burning sensation was extremely painful for Samuel, he recovered very quickly from the episode, and we had a great day Monday and Tuesday playing outside (playground and tennis lessons!) and getting ready for Wednesday's excitement.