Sunday, February 12, 2006
First Week on VMP
My mother has finally begun the VMP with Dr. Picozzi. The first stage of
the VMP consists of 3 types of drugs combined with radiation. They inserted
a PICC line into my mother's arm which is a small catheter that runs from the
arm to just above the heart. This is used to infuse the chemo drugs and IV
fluids. They have hooked up a pump that my mother carries around with her
for continuous infusion of 5FU. She receives an IV bag of Cisplatin once
a week along with 3 bags of IV fluids to hydrate her. She receives
subcutaneous injections of Interferon Alpha three times a week. Finally,
she gets radiation for a few minutes every day. The first day of treatment
she received all 4 portions of the treatment. At night she suffered from
severe fever (up to 103) for several hours but Dr. Picozzi said that is not
an uncommon side effect of the interferon especially on the first shot. Her
second shot was much better and she didn't get feverish at all. Mostly, she
is naseous and fatigued and has been sleeping a lot. She's already not doing
well so we're quite worried it's going to get really hard towards the latter
stages. I'm hoping she doesn't suffer too much.
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