On Thursday the 2nd, my Clinical Trial began. Mom and I came to Chapel hill for Thursday and Friday to do all the preliminary tests and meet with the doctors and nurses in charge of the trial. Thursday started with a CT scan, then an EKG and an Echocardiogram. The nurses who did all these were pro's at sticking me with needles without me noticing. My port, which has not been being used much since August of last year, is acting up. It happily takes fluids, but has no interest in giving any blood back. The tech doing the echo told me once again that I have a picture perfect heart. Hey... I guess we take what praise we can get at this point.
Friday is blood work, and doctor's visits. I drank a lot of water Thursday night hoping to get my port a little more active, and you know what? It worked! Thank good ness! My port is functioning again. So the nurse pulls a bajillion tubes of blood and then I am off to the doctor. We go over my CT results, which show that while there has been growth, it hasn't been much growth, even though I have been off chemo for a month.
Then the doctor and clinical nurse go over my other tests. Nope... I am still not pregnant. All my numbers look good except the one about clotting, and that's because they took it from my port. Apparently, they inject this stuff into your port to stop clotting and to clear it out. So... Yet another arm stick. I fell asleep waiting for the nurse to come stick me, and according to the nurse, when she came in, I was asleep singing Margaritaville. Don't ask.... apparently I sing when I am under the threat of being stuck with a needle.
They put us up in this really great hotel. It has a heated Salt water pool! I was in that thing so fast... it took down the swelling in my chest so nicely.
And That was the first two days of my trial... the testing phase!
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