Rachel was feeling pretty nauseous all weekend and wasn’t able to eat or drink much. She was also feeling pretty dizzy, so we called the doctor’s office and they said to come in so they could check her blood counts. Counts were okay, so they figured that the dizziness was caused by the scopolamine patch that she was using to help with nausea. The doctor had her take that off since it appeared to be making her feel worse and not better. They gave her some IV fluids while she was there since she hadn’t been drinking much; she felt a bit better after that and removing the patch.

We got home around 3pm today. Rachel’s still feeling really tired, kind of nauseous, no appetite.

The doctor decided to try this round without giving her the neulasta shot (that boosts her white counts) since she has longer to recover from this round than she did when she was on the other chemo schedule.

Rachel finally got her blood transfusion around 4am today. She was sent for another MRI to get a new baseline with the new diagnosis. They also sent her for a baseline hearing test a few days ago because cisplatin can cause hearing loss (it just keeps getting better…) Her hearing was at the low end of normal in the top frequency, but other than that her hearing is great.

Chemo continued today – cisplatin and doxorubicin repeated today. Rachel didn’t feel like eating or drinking today and was too tired to keep her eyes open all day.

 

Rachel started the first round of chemo with the new schedule and new diagnosis of osteosarcoma. We called the hospital this morning to see if there was a bed ready for her yet and they didn’t have orders for her to come in today; they had her scheduled for next week, which would have been when she’d have come in again with the old schedule. We had to wait for the doctor’s office to open and get it sorted out. Finally got the orders sent and then we had to wait for a bed to be available because the pediatric unit was full (which is really sad, when you stop and think about it.)

Rachel’s bloodwork yesterday showed that her hemoglobin was really low (5.something – normal is 12ish) so she needs a blood transfusion while she’s in here. They wanted to start the chemo first so there aren’t any more delays with that.

This round of chemo includes two days of cisplatin, which we’ve been told is one of the worst nausea-causing chemos there is, and two days of doxorubicin, which she’s already had before back in her first round.

Tonight my friend Jean stopped by for a visit and brought us dinner. In addition to dinner (and wine and dessert), she brought her new kitten. Though our 2 adult cats were less than impressed, Rachel, Caitlyn and I really enjoyed the fun. 🙂

We finally got the pathology results from Boston today: She has osteosarcoma, not mesenchymal chondrosarcoma. This seemed like the better result in our minds (relatively speaking), though it’s certainly frustrating that she’s been treated for the wrong cancer for a month and will now have to start over at the beginning with the treatment schedule for osteosarcoma, making an already extremely long treatment schedule even longer.

Just a little update on Rachel’s college applications: she was accepted at all 5 of the schools that she applied to AND got HUGE scholarships at both University of Vermont and Simmons College. 😀 UVM was her top choice for a bit but now she’s leaning back toward Simmons, which was her original top choice a few months ago. She also was accepted at University of Maine (Orono), University of Rhode Island, and Framingham State University (she also was awarded scholarships at URI and Framingham, though not as substantial as Simmons or UVM.)

Rachel felt too tired and a bit nauseous today, so wasn’t able to attend her art class. 😦

We still don’t have pathology results from Boston so the doctor decided to delay today’s chemo. Her blood test showed that her platelets were too low for chemo anyway, so she wouldn’t have been able to have chemo today either way

Rachel is planning to take this opportunity to go to her art class again tomorrow.

Rachel went to her art class today – the first time she’s attended a class since November 10. She was a little apprehensive about it, not wanting to deal with all of the “how are you”s and didn’t want to have to talk about cancer. It turned out to be pretty great seeing her friends again and of course they were all really happy to see her in class. Caitlyn is in that class too; she was super excited to have Rachel go to class today.

Rachel mentioned a couple days ago that the chemo is making her fingerprints disappear. The lock screen on her phone won’t unlock with her fingerprint anymore; she had to change it to a normal password.

Rachel had her official 504 meeting with the school today to go over the accommodations that she will need and make them official. Thankfully Rachel only needs 3 more classes to graduate, one of which needs to be English. She decided to drop calculus and one of her science classes – either physics or A/P chemistry. She’d prefer to keep the chemistry class but they’re not sure if they can accommodate online labs. The physics teacher has waived the lab requirements for that class, but the A/P classes have more requirements that need to be met. She also dropped Intro to Sports Medicine, which was only a 1 semester class that hasn’t started yet. She will be keeping the English class, Mandarin 2 (they will be looking into getting her a Rosetta Stone license to work from home), Art 2, and one of the science classes. Since she’ll be missing so much school and her assignments will be modified so much that she won’t be doing the same assignments as the rest of her class. Her teachers said that she’s more than welcome to come to class whenever she feels up to it, but that there might not be much point because she won’t know what’s going on in the class. Sounds like the only class she can really attend will be art class, where she can work on whatever art project she wants when she’s there. 😦

The good news is that the school is making every accommodation needed so that she can graduate in June. Rachel was happy to be at the school and see her teachers – for the first time since November 10. She’s planning on going to her art class tomorrow.