Another New Normal

Today officially marked the beginning of maintenance chemo. Compared to the previous chemotherapy regimen--particularly the Avastin colitis nightmare--this was a total breeze. I ought to know--it didn't happen to me.

Karen's port is just a little less intrusive than this one.

At any rate, the chemo session was delightfully short, taking only about an hour from start to finish. This is one of the great benefits to going down to just a single therapeutic drug. Not only are we sidestepping the lengthy infusions of the other drugs but we're not having to sit through the administration of the additional meds that go along to make those drugs more tolerable. No more Emend, etc.

The chemo experience was also made less unpleasant thanks to Karen's brand new port. She had it put in last Thursday and while it was still sore today, it was good to go for her treatment. The port "lives" under her skin in her upper right chest. To access it, the nurse administering the drugs simply attaches an IV coupling to the port, then hooks up the IV to that coupling and away we go. Instead of hunting for a good vein--and Karen has basically just about run out--the nurse only has to plug the needle into the port. The port is already attached to Karen's circulatory system into a vein I forget the name of.

Post-zombie apocalypse childcare at its finest.

And now we just, well, coast. This is yet another new normal and while it's not as great as the grand old days of Crizotinib, it sure looks better than regular chemo (even though it adheres to the same Every Three Weeks schedule). We can expect to wring about 6 to maybe 12 months out of maintenance chemo assuming all goes well. So it's another anniversary, another Festival of Pies, another Christmas, another lots of things.

Looking ahead: Karen will have an MRI in a week to check in on the growths in her brain.

Looking back: Karen grew tired of the patchy Medusa look the chemo had left her with so she cut off most of her hair. She did not shave her head. Which is probably good because I have my doubts about her ability to pull that look off. The end result is pretty good, leaving her looking kinda like Carol from the Walking Dead. Ideally, she will not instruct our kids to "look at the flowers."

And God forbid she tell them to make flowers. Eep. I just made my skin crawl.