Friday- Start of Cycle 3 (Day 1 Cycle 3)

 Schedule: 

        7:50am Blood draw

        9:00am Meet with Dr, Parry

        10:00am Chemo Infusion 

Summer was feeling especially tired this morning as she went into Dana Farber for her appointments.  While meeting with Dr. Parry, she explained that Summer may get more & more tired as the cycles progress & that this is normal.  

This is how Summer & Laura described the waiting room as other young adults arrived. 

We all had a number of questions for Dr. Parry today.  The one that Summer had was whether she could attend her high school reunion this weekend, the outdoor portions of it.  Dr. Parry said the timing of it was right as it’s just before her white blood count gets too low but the main concern she needs to be mindful of is bacterial infections - so as long as Summer takes precautions, she could attend the outside events.  Summer was thrilled! 

Then Dr. Parry showed Laura & Summer pictures of her scans and compared them to the earlier scans.  Dr. Parry was extremely pleased with what she was seeing and explained the images below, walking through the improvements between the jagged edges of the early scans vs the way it looks now.  

The circled yellow section is the tumor. The circled red is Summer’s heart. 

When they got home, Kim asked Summer to explain the scans to her and to walk her through what they meant.  Summer laughed saying she’d try but she really didn’t know.  Summer compared her understanding of Dr. Parry explaining the scans to the episode of Friends when Rachel’s doctor explained the ultrasound to Ross & Rachel.  (If you’re not familiar with the episode, check out the clip Summer was referencing here!)

Summer will be getting another PET scan (the bright colorful one) between cycle 3 and 4 - hasn’t been scheduled yet. 

Summer sleeps through chemo infusion at Dana Farber 

Summer did her chemo today as an inpatient and slept through most of it (after losing to Laura in cribbage.). Once those two bags were complete, they set up her next 48 hours of chemo treatment in her backpack and home they went. 

And just to add to the excitement of the day, not long after arriving home from Dana Farber, Derek started feeling poorly & found he had a slight fever. Off to the urgent care he went to get tested for Covid/flu & anything else they’d test for but in the meantime, the executive decision was made for Kim & Bob to take Summer up to Manchester as a precaution. 

The good news is Derek tested negative for flu A & B and Covid! Now he just needs to drink lots of fluid & rest - Feel better soon, Derek!!