A Typical Visit to the Clinic?

I'm sitting here at the Clinic while Matthew is getting a blood transfusion, and watching both Matthew and Justin sleep in chairs, and I'm wondering if we'll ever get the hang of these visits.

We've had three visits to the clinic so far (which is in the hospital, but it's where all of the outpatient chemo patients are seen.) It's interesting. You come in, and check in at the desk. There's a tiny waiting area, but we've never had to wait long. When they call your name, they take you to a wide hallway where they've set up an area to weigh in, measure height, and get blood pressure. Then they take you to a room. There are 8 or 9 rooms that are like a regular doctor's office. This is where they do the weekly examination and put the needle into his port (called accessing). We talk about the 500 questions Justin and I have come up with over the week -- at least the ones we didn't already call about in our paranoia. Then, like 5 doctors and 3 nurses check Matthew, and have the same conversations with us about side effects and signs of infection. This takes roughly 2 hours.

After that is where it starts to vary. If we have an appointment at the RTU (Rapid Treatment Unit - where they do procedures that are not surgical, but require general anesthesia), it will usually be scheduled 2 hours after the beginning of the clinic appointment. The first time, we hadn't gotten his chemo yet, so they sent us down to RTU, then we came back upstairs for the chemo.

At this point, they put us into the last area at the clinic. I think I would refer to this area as the armchair area. There is a wall lined with big armchairs, and each has a rocking chair to its side. There are curtains to separate each one. It's right next to the nurses station, which is in a little room that's connected with the bigger, open area of the clinic. On that first visit, they put us in an armchair to do the chemo, which was just 2 minutes, and then they took the needle out of his port.

The second week, they just kept us in the room for the chemo. There was no RTU visit.

Today, they didn't do his regular chemo (because he's done with induction -- YAY!!), but in the RTU they did a different kind in his spinal fluid when they did his spinal tap (Methotrexate). Then, he needed a blood transfusion, so we came back up to the armchairs. I think the armchairs are mostly used for when the kids need something through the IV and it will take a long time.

Thankfully, today was pretty restful. Matthew ate pizza and then watched Spongebob for a while, then took a nap for most of the transfusion. By the time we leave, we'll have been here for about 7 hours. That's a long day. Especially since Matthew was up and crying for most of the night because he was hungry, but he couldn't eat because he was going under anesthesia today.

So, I guess I still haven't figured out what a typical visit to the clinic is like, but when I do, I'll let you know.