Monday, January 17 - Day +96; Maintenance Chemo Cycle 1, Day 1

Collin started his 6 months of maintenance chemo tonight. The drug he's getting is called Temodar, and he's had it before. It may cause nausea and vomiting, so Collin's oncologist suggested it be given at bed time so he won't be bothered much; she also advised me to give him Zofran (an anti-emetic) at least an hour beforehand. The drug also should be given on an empty stomach, either one hour before or two hours after a meal, and should be given about the same time every day. Since Collin goes to bed at 8:00 pm, my goal was for him to be finished eating dinner and having his other medications at 6:00 pm, so I could give him the Temodar at 8:00 pm before he went to sleep. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans...dinner ran late, and then when I gave Collin his other medications, he threw them up (there is one that makes him gag at times, and then he throws up). So, I spoke to the oncologist on-call, and he said I could re-dose the meds that Collin threw up. So I did, and then at 8:30 pm I gave him the chemo. I was nervous, because the last time I had to give Collin chemo, I put it in his feeding tube, and at least I knew he wouldn't be able to spit it out; I felt like there was less of a chance that something could go wrong. Without the feeding tube, I felt like I had less control.

So at 8:30 pm, I brought Collin downstairs, got the chemo out of the fridge (most people have normal things like milk, butter, and eggs in their fridge!), laid Collin on the changing table, put on gloves, took a deep breath, and slowly squirted the chemo into the back of Collin's throat. It was over in a second, and he didn't even try to spit anything out. One day down, only about one hundred seventy nine to go!