Three Lumens

 Yesterday was an eventful day. Tony's first appointment started at 9. It was a simple blood draw, and then a covid test (always a bad idea to give someone chemo if they have covid). Everything came back that he was in the clear so we met with the doctor. 

He went over everything we talked to the cardiologist about, and said that she had signed him off for the transplant. He also said that the biopsy showed 0.2% residual cancer but that he doesn't think they'll get him any lower than that pre-transplant, so he feels it's best to proceed with the transplant. 

Then he brought up Tony's latest CT scan. He said we needed to meet with a specialist because there was some new spots showing up in his Chest CT. We told him we thought is was just the last remaining bit from his pneumonia. And he said it was compared to the previous CT. We had to tell him that the most recent CT was actually done at the Tremonton hospital and that the test results we'd seen showed that they actually compared last weeks to his chest CT in July and not the one from 3 weeks ago. 

So this has been a recurring problem for us. We understand their reasoning for doing it, but it doesn't come without frustrations. Tony has been passed back and forth between 2 teams of doctors. One is regular hematology/oncology. The other is the transplant team. But in our experience, they haven't done especially well at communication with each other. 

Once they were made aware of the error, they were able to pull up his CT scan from January 7th and have it compared to last weeks scan. The radiologist said that it does look like the tail end of the pneumonia now that he can compare it to the CT that showed pneumonia. So he also cleared Tony for transplant. The transplant coordinator thanked us for looking over the test and recognizing the error. 

While we were in his office, he also noticed Tony looked extra pale. Tony told him he's been having a hard time doing too much. So they gave him a red blood cell infusion to hopefully bolster him up for his transplant. 

When we looked at the days schedule in the morning, we thought we'd be done at 11. We ended up not being done until almost 4. 

Then a nice man from a charitable foundation that helps out with mental health of kids who have a parent with cancer, took us out to a nice dinner at an adorable cafe in town. 

Now, onto today.

Tony had his line placed this morning that will get him through the transplant. The last time he had a chest port put in (in Virginia) they put him out for the procedure. So he was a bit surprised when they didn't for this one. He says he would have much preferred to sleep through the operation. They did give him a mild amount of sedation, but he does remember the entire operation. He said it hurt a bit, but it wasn't too bad. I was sad to miss out on loopy Tony. I always like to be in the room when he comes out of surgeries cause he's hilarious. But no silly Tony this time. 

The line has 3 lumens, so they can have 3 different IVs hooked up to him at the same time. They pulled the picc line out of his arm. My friend Betsy sewed a bunch of shirts with zipper access to a chest port, that we haven't used since she sewed them since he's had a picc line instead. But now he'll have several months of the chest port, so we'll put those t-shirts to good use. Thanks Betsy!

Tomorrow he starts outpatient chemo for the transplant. He'll check into the hospital next Monday and the transplant will happen a week from today. 

Thanks for all the thoughts/prayers/fasting. We appreciate you!