After a week full of labs, Covid tests, nurse follow ups, dressing changes, Friday was finally here. The day of Brooklyn’s second follow up scan, and the removal of her broviac to insert her med port.
The week before her scans, I find myself very anxious. What if they find that there are tumor cells coming back? Who will her nurse be? Will the anesthesiologist treat her like their own child? Will she be warm in MRI machine while she’s put under? So many thoughts cross my mind every time she has a scan. When Brooklyn has a scan, she’s not able to eat solids 8 hours before, nurse 4 hours before and she can have clear liquids up to 2 hours before the scan. Lucky for me, since Brooklyn still prefers to nurse I literally woke up at 4:56, rolled over to nurse her right up until 5:00. Phew!!
Before we move further, let’s discuss the anatomy of the highway. The right lane. This lane is for the rule followers, the ones who go the speed limit. The middle lane is for testing the limits, feeling like you want to between 7-10 miles over the speed limit. The left lane…now those people are looking to do illegal shit so if you’re a rule follower, or even questioning if you want to go a little bit fast, you’re going to want to stay out of the left lane :). On hospital days, I’m a middle to left lane lady, depending on how traffic is especially during construction season.
Having been a frequent flier through the Bowery St. entrance, the masking and Covid check is second nature. “Welcome to the hospital, do you have any symptoms or exposure? You know where you’re going.” I’m getting to the point where I’m so comfortable at the hospital, I’m fist bumping housekeeping and recognizing clinic staff outside of the clinic and I don’t mind it. Usually when we get to the hospital and we aren’t 10 minutes early, I start to panic. Friday, we arrived exactly on time at 7:30 am and for some reason, I was taken by some sort of abnormal calm for surgery/scan day. Brooklyn slept well, she wasn’t upset or indicating she was super hungry which put my mind at ease.
Surgery was running behind, which pushed the start time of Brooklyn’s MRI back 30 minutes. At this point, we’re hitting nap time and I could tell that Brooklyn would go to sleep. Even though she hadn’t eaten since 5 and it was now 9:30, she fell asleep on my chest listening to our baby lullaby sound track, snuggled under her blanket with her bear hat on. That sweet baby stayed asleep when the surgeon came to evaluate her for port placement and even slept through the transfer from mommy to the nurse, which made me feel at peace. When the nurse came to update us after the MRI was over, she had told us that the anesthesiologist was dancing for Brooklyn trying to entertain for her and Brooklyn looked at him with her “I’m done with your nonsense” face, which made me and Ben laugh and say: “That’s our girl.”
Ben and I had anticipated being at the hospital for a while, so when they told us that 45 minutes after they started the port surgery that they were done, we were shocked. Now, I had in my mind that Brooklyn was getting a port the size my cousin had when he went through treatment for leukemia (who is now 5 years cancer free!). I imagined my baby coming out with this raised, heart shaped lump on her chest with a huge incision. Boy was I wrong! She has a teeny weeny incision under her collarbone about one inch long, no stitches and it’s just sealed with glue!! How stinking cool!! Where her broviac was removed, she has two dissolvable stitches and that incision was about a centimeter long! Some people have never heard of a broviac, I certainly never had. Basically it’s an external line like a catheter which is inserted into a vein going into Brooklyns heart and it’s used to deliver chemo, fluids, antibiotics, antiemetics, and can be used to draw labs so Brooklyn wouldn’t have to get poked. We liked it because after Brooklyn’s tumor resection, she had some blood clots and received lovenox injections 2x a day from September to the end of November and it was miserable. Thankfully those have resolved and she no longer has to get the shots.
The best part about the broviac removal is that we no longer have to worry about her grabbing it and pulling on it, because if we are being honest, Brooklyn pulling on that broviac had Ben and myself worried that she would pull it out. I always kept two onesies on her so she couldn’t grab at it unless it was a wipe down day since she couldn’t have a bath. The hardest part about this dang broviac is this: after Brooklyn’s B Cycle of chemo, she was backed up for a couple of days. Girlfriend held it in until a Friday when I was asking her what we wanted to do since we didnt have chemo and she was starting to feel better. Apparently our daughter missed the clinic because she had the biggest blow out. Up the back, up the front, down the side and….in the broviac cap. I was TERRIFIED that poop was going to get in the line, we’d end up in the hospital, that she’d get an infection. Panicked, I was trying to find my phone. “I need to call the clinic!!!!!”. When we finally got cleaned up and arrived at the clinic, the sweet nurses didn’t anticipate how much poop was actually in her cap. There were a handful of different people who looked at the cap to evaluate the best way to clean it. After this, I was ready for the port, and the ability to hose Brooklyn down because wipes just don’t cut it! I was ready for the next adventure.
BATH TIME!!!! The last time Brooklyn had a real bath was August 26th when I took her in the shower with me for the first and last time for the foreseeable future. Sure, she had a bath when we came home from the hospital after her biopsy to clean the hospital smell off of her, but she’s never been able to play in the water. After she got her broviac, we had to put an aqua guard over her line and dressing to make sure water didn’t get in the line and cause infection- God only knows we didn’t want to spend any more time in the hospital after we had been there for a month.
March 12, 2022 Brooklyn got a bath. I filled the tub with some nice warm water, got her Noah’s Arc toy to play with and couldn’t want to get my baby and put her in the tub! Thinking that our brave little girl would love it…I was mistaken. She didn’t love it but she didn’t hate it either. If I was holding her in the tub, she did okay. Either way my goal was to get the orange crud off of Brooklyn so she smelled like home and was no longer the color of an Oompa Loompa. Now, we can look for a swim suit for the summer so our sweet baby can play in the water! It’s so weird to see a baby without anything sticking out on her, to be able to pick her up and give Brooklyn a baby massage and not worry about getting the broviac was a blessing.
March 13 and we HATE bath time. Brooklyn screamed at the top of her lungs for the entire time we were trying to wash her. This is a work in progress and we will just have to work on reintroducing her to the water one foot bath in the sink at a time. 😂🥳
Brooklyn starts her third cycle of chemo March 15th, which puts us at our half way mark for her treatment!
Fearfully and Wonderfully Brave 