Frozen in Time

First off, let me say that I just spoke with Deb on the phone and she's feeling fine.  Of course, she's still in recovery, so she still has good drugs going through her system so she doesn't feel pain yet.  One of the recovery room nurses was nice enough to call me and then put Deb on, even though I'm not allowed back yet.  Ain't technology wonderful?

I had only just gotten back to the hospital a few minutes before.  I had a mission. To pick up some dry ice.  For Deb. Yeah.

Right after Deb gets out of the recovery ward, we'll head over two or so blocks to the Madison Clinic.  For her first chemo infusion. Yeah, I know, right?  She can't wait to try out that new port.  Chemo will start around noon or so, but I hope to be able to get Deb a little something to eat before that (since she couldn't eat after 10pm last night before surgery this morning).

But at least I already have the dry ice.

What's that for, I heard someone in the third row ask?  Excellent question.  That's for those lovely cold caps Deb will get to wear during chemotherapy treatments in the hope of keeping her hair from falling out.  The premise is that chilling the scalp constricts the capillaries around the hair follicles so the chemotherapy drug (Taxol) won't get to them during infusion.  Will it work?  Maybe?  Probably?

But they have to be kept really cold.  Really, really cold.  Like -25 F cold.  Hence the dry ice.  Carbon dioxide has a freezing point below -80 F, so it will keep those caps nice and cold for a while.  But once we put one on her head (after waiting until it warms up to -30 F or so) it warms up pretty fast, so we have to change them out every 20 minutes or so.  We have eight caps that I will circulate through the cooler to re-cool them.  Deb has to wear one for 45 minutes before chemotherapy starts, for the 150 minutes of infusion, and for another 180 minutes after infusion ends.  Do the math and you can figure out how many times I'll be changing those things out.  A pain, to be sure, but worth it to her if she keeps her hair.  And if it's worth it to her, I will do what I can to make it work.  At least I'm not the one wearing the things.