Cycle #2: Days 1 & 2

This weekend I went in for my second treatments. As with Treatment #1, it was administered over two days. The first day took about 2 hours to administer, and the second day was less than 1.5 hours. Unlike with Treatment #1, I did not experience any of the burning sensation in my arm with the IV, which was nice. There is not much medical news to share other than on Day #2 I probably felt as good as I have in a long time.

When I decided to create this blog I also decided that this would not become an outlet for complaining about the administravia and hiccups that are inevitably part of receiving medical care. The only exception to my complaining is when I can muster a constructive or helpful suggestion to help deal with the problem that I faced. So here we go: On Day #1 of Treatment #2, I had to wait over 3 hours in the waiting room before I was taken-in to receive the CVD. The problem was simple but very annoying. Because CVD is rarely administered, its protocol and all of its specifics are not pre-loaded into the computer system. The result is that all of the instructions are hand-written by my oncologist, are given to the pharmacists, and then when it's made the nurses take over. This time, the pharmacists were unable to read the oncologist's writing. As it was a Friday, they could not locate the oncologist. They then had to track-down another physician who gave the instructions, at which point the pharmacists could start making the cocktail. 2 hours to get the instructions, and then 1+ hour to follow them...pretty brutal as a patient to wait that long to even get the chemo. So here is my constructive suggestion: If you are receiving CVD, or any rare chemo for that matter, confirm that your physician will either be around on the day that it is made and administered, or if this is not possible, confirm who is on-call and that they are familiar-enough with your case that they can answer questions about it.