First off...the image is NOT Amy. I acquired it from a google search of 'funny hospital gown pictures'. Apologies to the gentleman in the picture if he somehow finds this blog.
Amy is back on the 7th floor of Seton for 'consolidation therapy'. What is that you might ask? Once Leukemia is in remission (yeah!), depending on your risk profile, additional chemotherapy is needed to keep the Leukemia in remission until the next big thing OR to possibly kick the Leukemia. Again, there is some sciencey stuff in there that I am leaving out.
Amy is in the intermediate risk category, and a stem cell transplant is the next major step in the process. That means that she is doing consolidation therapy now before the stem cell transplant, the process could start as early as mid-March or maybe mid-April pending a suitable match.
Generally there are two types of chemotherapy for the treatment of Leukemia. Induction and consolidation. 'Induction' therapy is 24 hours a day. 'Consolidation' therapy is 3 hours of chemotherapy 2x in 12 hours on days 1, 3, and 5. How's that you say? We are athletes, and we run. So, I'll lay it out for you. We'll use 70 miles a week since the math is easy.
Induction = 70 miles a week run 7 days straight as 10 miles a day staring at 7am. Then you get a break.
Consolidation = 70 miles a week run as 11.67 miles run at 7am and 7pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then you get a break.
Get on with it Brandon.
When we left Seton the first time, the nurses remarked that Amy was the 'best dressed' patient they had. Amy will tell you herself that she is no fashionista, nor am I. BUT, on the oncology floor at Seton (and the Drs at TXOncology) they want the patient to be comfortable. So, Amy wore t-shirts, loose PJ pants, and when her hair started coming out stylish beanie type hats. She was comfy. Special shout outs to Missy and Rita from ATC for hooking us up early in the process with some cool PJ pants. And thanks to those who have hooked Amy up with stylish beanies.
Why wouldn't she wear the hospital gown? The hospital gown is, when you think about it, kind of a dumb design. They aren't really comfortable. Your butt hangs out. They connect at the back. And, then sometime in January LiveStrong retweeted an article from the Alcalde...a publication put out by the Texas-Exes. Not ex-husbands or ex-wives, but University of Texas alums.
Title: Ten Backward Things About Healthcare.
#10: Hospital gowns exposure your rear end when you get out of bed.
I am going to go ahead and say that my favorites were: 10, 9, 7, 5!!, 4!, and 1
We haven't had an issue with most of the ones that I didn't list. I'm still trying to sort out the best 'insurance' blog.
Follow-up blog will be some of the information that we learned while at MD Anderson in Houston when we had our stem cell consultation last week. We did find out she is supposed to wear the gown at Anderson!! I asked why during the patient/family orientation, but there wasn't a definitive answer...especially when patient comfort was mentioned.
