Overachieve Much?

Tate’s appointment this morning went well for the most part. The notification text we got from Phoenix Children’s Hospital confirming his check-in time was wrong, so we thought we were arriving 20 minutes early only to find out we were an hour late. While Tate was getting shuffled through all the various stages of check-in, I saw a doctor with a Spider-Man cap and a backpack walking out of the surgery center, keys in hand, and about 30 seconds later a nurse ran past us and returned with the doctor. It turns out the doctor with the backpack was the anesthesiologist, and we were so late and there were so few patients he thought he was done at the clinic.

Thank goodness for quick thinking nurses in running shoes.

Tate got a Methotrexate chemo blast in his spine and Vincristine through the port in his chest. He was so funny when he came out of anesthesia, even though the anesthesiologist only gave him the bare minimum to knock him out. Some of the anesthesiologists at previous appointments have loaded him up with various drugs to help with headaches, etc., but this one just gave him Propofol and Zofran. It turns out Tate doesn’t need much to be the life of the OR – Tate had the nurses laughing so hard. He was also super wiggly and not following instructions at all, so they put up the rails on his bed to keep him from falling off. He didn’t like that, but we couldn’t keep him still.

Tate gets a bag of fluids after every Lumbar Puncture; it’s the difference between the post-op headache lasting a few hours or a few days. Today he was anxious to leave before getting all the saline because he had a 9:00am class he didn’t want to miss. His blood pressure was pretty low while he was under anesthesia, so the Nurse Practitioner Angie wouldn’t let him leave without getting the whole bag. It was only after we got home that he told me his grade in that class is 317%. I had to laugh. Only Tate would have a score like that and be a total stress case about missing 15 minutes.

Tate isn’t feeling too great now the good drugs have worn off and the chemo has kicked in. He started a 5-day steroid pulse this morning, too, which will make keep him miserable for the next several days.

We decked out Tate’s room for Christmas. He has decorations hanging from the ceiling and his tiny tree to look at while he recovers in his cozy bed.