Wednesday, May 16, 2012

This afternoon I had my doctor's appointment, lab work and Avastin infusion at Huntsman.  My parents were out of town so we ended up just having DH stay home with the kids while I went by myself.  I knew ahead of time that we would have some conflicts and since I haven't really had any adverse reactions to the Avastin infusions we decided that this would be the easiest solution.  A couple of weeks ago I signed up my older kids for swim lessons, knowing that we might have a conflict this week.  I had to give DH quite a few instructions on how to go about getting the kids to their lessons and we discussed what he should do with the younger kids.  He ended up just dropping all 4 of the older kids off at the rec center and then went to a park that is adjacent to it for the younger kids to play at and then he stopped back to pick them up after the lessons were over.  I was hoping that I might make it back in time to pick up the kids from lessons so that DH could go home, but it didn't happen.

I ended up having a really good visit with my "team" at Huntsman.  It was a much more thorough visit than I have had the last couple of times which was nice.  They were able to answer some of the questions that I had and we discussed my next few treatments - and possible conflicts with an upcoming family vacation.  As a part of the study I am on, I will be having complete chest/abdominal CT scans every 3 months (at least for this first year).  I will be on the Avastin indefinitely.  The doctor told me that she would love to have me on it forever because that would mean that it is doing what they hope it will do and keeping the cancer away.  I am free to stop it at anytime if I want and I think that they can stop the study at anytime that they want as well.  So until either of those possibilities happen, I will be receiving the Avastin every 3 weeks.

Everyone at the clinic was commenting on my hair and how nice and evenly it is coming in.  Apparently with some people it comes in in patches.  My nurse practitioner also asked about my family and if I had any pictures of the kids.  They've never asked to see one before so I pulled some up on my ipad and told them the names and ages.

After the appointment I had my lab work drawn and then went over to the infusion center.  It took a while for them to call me back and then for some reason it took forever to get the Avastin again...  My infusion appointment was set for 3:30 but I don't think they started the infusion itself until around 4:30.  Once it started it went pretty quickly and I was home around 6:00.