A snail?

Catherine had her portacath inserted yesterday under General Anaesthetic and I'm pleased to say that the operation went well. She is telling everyone today that she is 'being a snail' because she takes so long walking anywhere. The surgeon said it will take a few days for her to get used to everything but he was very positive about the operation so we are not too worried about this.

The operation lasted about one hour and it signals the end of all the attempts to insert cannulas. We are all relieved about this. The operation was scheduled for 1.30pm but unfortunately, Catherine was lacking part of the blood that helps with clotting and so they needed to give this before the operation. Half way through, the solution stopped flowing so we had to wait for a new bag to arrive. This put the procedure back until 3.30pm, and by this time Catherine was really hungry. She got really fed up with me and kept asking why I wouldn't give her food - she had her (huge) breakfast at 8am that morning and wasn't allowed any more because of the General Anaesthetic. This would be hard for anyone, but with Catherine on steroids it was even more of a challenge for her.

Today she is now coming to terms with this strange thing in her side. The portacath also clicks sometimes because it currently has the pin in it (this will be removed on Friday). She doesn't want to look at it at the moment, and only let me lift her T-shirt up to examine it if she didn't have to see it herself. She is feeling uncomfortable and last night I asked her whether she was hurting or sore. She told me she wasn't but it was clear to Mark that she looked in pain so we gave her some of her painkiller. 'Ah, that's better', she said. We then had to tell her that what she had been feeling was pain and that we could give her some medicine to take the pain away. I think Catherine has always had quite a high pain threshold - whenever she falls over she just gets up and carries on - but we were still surprised to be describing what pain was to her. She also didn't sleep well last night and wanted me to sleep in her bed with her until about 4am when we all got up and had another snack (she had already had five that night). Her daddy then swapped with me, but Catherine decided she was getting up at 6am!

So we had a restful day at home today. It has been good to have a few minutes to recover from everything that has been going on. She has also been laughing with us today, and because she cannot have a bath yet, she really enjoyed me washing her feet because it tickled!

We still need to be very vigilant that Catherine doesn't get any infections. Now that she has a portacath which passes into a vein, there is a risk that the line may get infected. Next Friday we will also be having her 28-day bone marrow test which will look at how much disease is left in her body. The aim of the first few weeks of chemo is to get rid of the existing leukaemia cells. Please pray that this has been effective, because she will then remain on the less toxic chemotherapy regimen and will therefore hopefully have less side effects. If all the cells are gone, she will have what is known as a 'first remission'. It is really important to have a first remission so that the treatment can be targeted at ensuring the disease doesn't come back. Thankyou for your prayers.