Tomorrow Lisa will have another blood panel done, and if the counts are better, it will be the last of the required daily trips to the cancer center for awhile.  It will also be her last day for home-based infusions of her antibiotics.

Lisa's home-based infusions are not done in the same manner as the ones done at the cancer center, or what is typically done in a hospital setting.  There's no bag of fluids on a pole dripping fluid into a tube attached to the patient.  Instead, her antibiotics or other fluids are in an "elastomeric medicine ball".  These are pre-measured doses that come in plastic balls -- which are sized anywhere from a golf-ball diameter to slightly smaller than a tennis ball -- that are under pressure and are easily hooked up to the same "port" that Lisa has in her chest that is used for most of the chemo treatments.  Lisa first uses a pre-measured syringe (no needle) at pushes saline through her port attachment, and then attaches the ball's tube.  The ball will deflate like a balloon (though very slowly) and deliver the medicine over a range of 30-60 minutes, but Lisa is able to move around the house and do whatever she wants by just tucking the ball into a pocket or keeping it next to where she's sitting or laying.  When the delivery is completed, she unhooks it, and then flushes the port again using another pre-measured saline syringe, and then finally flushes the port with Heparin which keeps it open and unclogged.  She's become quite adept at it.  If you want to see a demonstration of how it's done, click here.