It's time for Trace's 6 month checkup from his cancer surgery in October 2010.
What a long long day!!
Driving over from Louisiana...I swear that road gets longer and longer. :)
MickeyD's along the way for some breakfast. Made it to the hotel around 11am...got checked in and headed over to the hospital for his labs and chest x-ray. Stewart goes in with him for his labs and I do the scan. He got his mandatory ID bracelet since he's a minor. This was the first time for a chest x-ray and he had to change into a scrub top. He looked so cute in it!! :)
Once we finished the morning tests, I headed to the cafeteria to grab a quick lunch to take back to the hotel while they went to call for the shuttle. Chik-Fil-A sandwiches and nuggets! YUM!! Trace wasn't very hungry and ate a leftover burrito from breakfast. Nerves I guess. :(
Everyone ate then we got ready to head over to the Astros game. Hoping we find it easily and get back to the hospital after for his CT scan....which we did. The game was fun!! The kids enjoyed it. We left in the 7th inning about 3:30 to go check in for his scan.
We valet the truck (which we find is easier, faster and not too much for $$ than parking ourselves) and headed to 3rd floor for scan. The waiting room was FULL and after sitting there for a while listening to others we realize it could be a while. Some had been there since 10am and it was now after 4. 0_0
The routine is
1-check-in to diagnostic imaging
2-assessment
3-iv started
4-scan
This can be anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours. LOTS of cancer!! :( We saw 1 other child today.
They finally call for Trace to go to assessment, but they were too busy in that little room to do his IV, so we go back to waiting room. Soon they call his name and we go to the "back" waiting room where everyone is drinking their contrasts and discussing it's yuckiness. :) Most are hooked up to an IV's already, although I don't know what is being infused?? Chemo?? Many many patients coming and going in various phases of the procedure. Trace gets called to get his heplock started and as usual he is scared of the poke, but does very good every single time. They are sooooo good at starting IVs and drawing blood. We then wait again for him to be called for the scan.
The CT tech comes out and calls Trace's name and we find out he was from Welsh and worked in Alexandria driving a mobile scanning truck. He's been trying to get a job back in CenLA, but has been unsuccessful as of yet. He was awesome with Trace, making sure he was comfortable after having to use the straps around his wrists and feet to keep his shoulders down and back. That is necessary to get a good scan of his neck and head. The tech then said "ok,mom, let's step out." I had always stayed in the room with him during his scans and so I asked Trace if that was ok that I step out. He was fine with it, so I observed from the behind the glass. He's a big boy!! :'(
Scan went well...now to force fluids to get all that contrast out...and he is hungry!! We go to the cafeteria to grab some dinner before heading back to the hotel for the night. Stewart and Kelsi got some weird pasta/sausage stuff, I got a wrap and Trace got some chicken and sides. Everybody was so tired!! We got ice cream for dessert from the hotel vending and turned in early.
May 26th, 2011
We checked out of the hotel at almost noon and headed over to the hospital for his 12:30 appt, got checked in and then wait. We get called back to a room...then wait some more..... We had a nice visit with Wendy, our social worker.
Finally the PA comes in and she is good about just blurting out "the scans are good...no reoccurrence"...then she does her assessment. We discuss the reaction he had back on Easter after eating sour candy and the importance of sunscreen and Mederma on his incision. She checks out his neck and throat, making him gag. He hates that.
Dr. Lai then comes in and says that the reaction he had could be Frey's Syndrome and it may or may not increase in frequency. If it does and gets to be bothersome, he could do some botox injections. He said the nerves that were connected to the part of the parotid gland that was removed can reattach to the cheek therefore causing the cheek to react to certain foods. He said that sometime the saliva can leak out of the cheek on the face. Hope that doesn't happen.
They wished him lots of fun on our trip next month and said they would see us again in August!! We got some lunch--salads for me and Kelsi and the smokehouse dinners for Stewart and Trace. We then picked up the truck and headed home around 3.
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