Back In The SCCA

My oncologist called Sunday night.  As a testament to his supreme intelligence, he waited until 2 minutes after the Seahawks game ended.

We are just going to do chemo for now.  That radiation procedure I was mapped for a few weeks ago?  Maybe later.  This is fine with me; the radiologist said I had one wonky vein that might be problematic.  He was still okay with doing the procedure, but the mapping showed them there was a slight chance this rogue vein could carry radiation to places like my lungs or stomach-definitely places you don’t want to apply direct radiation to.  We may still do it down the road, but for now we’re going to play it safe.

I’m back on my 2 week chemo schedule now, and as of yesterday, I’m already down 2, 3 to go.  The first took place in the hospital, and yesterday’s was so last minute that this round is proving to be the No Fun Allowed round.  No celebrity guests, hardly any not-yet-celebrities-still-just-my-friends guests.  And yesterday, NO JUDY!  We’re not quite sure where she was.  Her sub was really good and really nice though.

In following with the No Fun Allowed theme, this post is kind of boring I guess.  But that’s the latest.  No nuking the tumors quite yet, reverting back to all-over poison.

Ho Ho Chemo

I knew the appointment to map my veins for radiation would take a long time.  I had no idea I’d be in the hospital for 5 days.

The mapping procedure, to see where all my veins go and make sure they won’t be depositing radiation in sensitive areas was Monday the 20th.  I was told it would take 6 hours for the mapping and 6 hours of not moving my leg to seal the artery, starting at 6:30 AM.  I checked in and went through the same old stuff; the blood pressure cuff, thermometer, heart rate monitor; and that’s when the waiting started.  My heart rate was through the roof although I couldn’t tell.  I was sent up to a room so a medical team could look at me, then brought back down to the radiation area around 2.  I’m not sure what time they actually went through with the procedure, but it wasn’t too bad.  I was put under the same anesthesia as other procedures, so I remember being told to hold my breath and stuff.  Thanks to that anesthesia the rest of the evening went by pretty easily.  I had to get another scan to see where all the markers had gone, then went up to a shared room to not move my leg for another 6 hours.  At this point it was too late to get discharged before midnight, so I settled in for an overnight stay.  My roommate was much more manageable than the charmer I met after surgery last month, so this wasn’t totally torturous.

I was discharged early the next morning but had to be at SCCA at 9 to start chemo.  You know how I like to run around looking like I don’t have cancer?  Not this time.  There are a few recliners in the waiting room and I bundled up in some blankets, laid back, and set out to be the most pathetic looking person in the waiting room.  I didn’t have an appointment with Sam that day, but his nurse Deb came through, looked at me and said “Um, we’re gonna get you in.”  A few minutes later I was back in an exam room, still bundled up in blankets looking pathetic on an exam table.  Dr. Whiting looked at me and said “I’m sending you back to the hospital.  You’ll get your chemo there, probably a blood transfusion, and you’ll get out in three to five days.”  Yikes.  I wasn’t really in a place to sass him back though.

So back to the hospital I went.  I got a private room this time, but the doctors didn’t review my charts for awhile, so I didn’t know whether I could eat or even drink water.  I soon learned the eating wasn’t anything to be upset over; the food was atrocious.  That first day was kind of a waste, nothing really happened aside from knowing what my blood pressure was every four hours.   They suspected I had an infection so I got to wake up 3 additional times that night to give extra blood samples aside from the usual monitoring.

The fun started the next morning.  Dr. Whiting called to say they couldn’t find any infections, so likely I just needed to start chemo soon and give those liver tumors a good bitch slap.  I had my first blood transfusion before chemo started.  By then it was Wednesday, so I was negotiating with my doctors to let me do the regular in house chemo in the hospital, then go get my fanny pack so I could get out before Christmas.  At first it was looking like I might get out late Christmas Eve, but I started the chemo so late that they plugged ahead with the 5 FU (what I’d usually get in a fanny pack) in the middle of the night, so there I was, stuck, probably not getting discharged until Christmas morning.  Bah humbug, and happy birthday to me.

I should point out that this hospital stay wasn’t nearly as bad as the one following my surgery.  The nurses were great, my doctors were fun, and my room had a view of the Montlake bridge.  And on my last night, the Christmas Ships came through the Montlake Cut, so it was fun to watch all the lit up boats go by.  The food was still terrible though; I should have sweet talked visitors into smuggling some decent food in.

Then came a Christmas Miracle!  One of the doctors determined I could cut off the 5 FU in the middle of the infusion if I was willing to go to SCCA to get the fanny pack for the remaining 24 hours.  This also meant a 3 AM discharge, but if I had refused this offer they may as well have moved me to the crazy wing.  I got out at 3, went home for a quick nap then I was back at SCCA bright and early for more chemo.  As I was walking past the nurses desk I was scoping everyone out but alas, no Judy.  I got to my room and there she was, that little Christmas elf.  Along with the 5 FU I was reunited with my old friend Avastin *guitar solo*, and got to go home and have a totally normal Christmas Eve at home.  Yep, totally normal.  Never mind this blue fanny pack and all those naps.

Instead of opening stockings Christmas morning, or eating bagels and lox like we usually do, I was back getting unplugged, but I’m okay with it.  I’ve heard of a lot of people who had chemo on their birthdays so I think it’s good luck.  And a birthday ON Christmas?  Tumors, you don’t stand a chance.

Chemo For Christmas!

Aside from the last few days, you really haven’t missed much while I’ve been recovering.  It took awhile to admit, but that hospital stay left me with some depression, and three weeks without leaving the house didn’t help my sanity.  I am sure my family will treasure the greatest keepsake from those three weeks; me incessantly singing the Full House theme song, but replacing all the words with “meow”. 

I had a CT scan this past Thursday at SCCA and went in yesterday to get the results.  I was yapping away about my next surgery and my thoughts on the previous one, and had I been paying a little more attention I might have noticed the concern all over Dr. Whiting’s face.  The CT scan didn’t show that the cancer has spread anywhere, but there is quite the party going on in my liver.  The known tumors are larger than they should be after 2 months off, and there are some new ones, including in the left lobe which we just operated on and should have cleaned up.  Time to change plans.

The second liver surgery is on hold now, and we’re going to do 2 doses of radiation along with chemotherapy.  The radiation process will be different than conventional radiation.  The radiologist will go in with a catheter through an artery that feeds into my liver, and he will deposit little beads of radiation.  Those will clog up the blood vessels that feed the liver tumors and zap the hell out of them.  Because it’s so localized, the side effects I’ll have to deal with should be pretty minimal, and the radiation pretty much stays on my liver.  I met with the radiologist today and learned more about the process.  It’s still relatively new, and only 3 hospitals in the state are doing it now.  Looking up “Y 90″ in your search engine of choice will no doubt give you a better explanation than I did. 

Now pull up images of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, here’s where it gets fun.  This procedure usually takes place on Wednesdays, and chemo would take place 3 days later.  Chemo will be similar to my last round; I’ll spend one full day in the hospital hooked up, and two days getting reunited with the fanny pack.  As Dr. Whiting and I were looking at the calendar we saw that best case scenario I would be getting radiation on the 22nd, which means I’d spend Christmas at SCCA getting chemo.  He kept staring at the calendar saying how sorry he was I’d have to do this on Christmas, and just because I’m cruel, I told him my birthday is also December 25th.  Then I said “Hey, we’re doing this so I can have more birthdays, so who cares if this one’s gonna suck.” 

If my hospital stay isn’t out of my system yet, that news officially had me in the dumps.  I was so used to hearing things like “70 percent reduction!” and “we removed 8 inches of colon!” when I was expecting a foot and a half.  It was hard to hear that my liver wasn’t keeping up with all the overachievement.  Deep down I know this new direction will be better, and I don’t have a second surgery looming over my head anymore (I might still have surgery, just not anytime soon).  Dr. Whiting called to check up on me which helped, and I spoke to a friend whose sister kicked breast cancer’s ass.  She told me she remembered a few appointments when her sister also heard that a treatment wasn’t working.  But she’s cancer free now (and has been a wonderful email mentor to me), so I feel a bit more normal. 

Towards the end of my appointment yesterday, while my head was spinning with all kinds of thoughts, I finally got the courage to wearily ask Sam “So.  Am I dying then?”  With more drama than even I usually use, he emphatically said “NNOOOOOO!  I mean, we’re all dying, I have to say that, but we have a lot more options to go through before we start talking like that.”  So there you have it.  I am officially still not dying any more than you are.

Still Here

I missed you guys!  My very first surgery and hospital stay are behind me, and I am recovering at my parents’ house.  Recovering more from the hospital stay than the surgery I think.

I really had nothing to be afraid of where surgery was concerned.  Soon after checking in early that morning I was prepped, which as far as I remember involved putting an IV in my hand, then rolling over to start the epidural.  They must have cranked up the gas immediately, because I only remember a few pokes, then waking up in the recovery room to learn my family was nowhere to be found.  Surgery went well though, and they took less of my colon than I was expecting them to. 

I spent the first night in ICU in less pain than I was expecting.  I don’t have the best streak with roommates, and the guy I shared a room with that first night was no exception.  He didn’t speak much English, was hard of hearing, and instead of ringing the Nurse Call button every 20 minutes when he’d try to rip his breathing tube out, he would just start banging on the side of his bed.  Nurses were already waking me up every hour to take my vitals, so it was a bit difficult to stay chipper, but I think I can safely say I was the nurses’ favorite patient between the two of us. 

Later the following afternoon, a room finally opened up where I would spend the remainder of my stay, and they rewarded my good behavior by giving me a very special room normally reserved for patients with tuberculosis.  The novelty of staying in a hospital wore off quickly.  After leaving the ICU I only had to have my vitals taken every four hours, yet I wasn’t able to maximize my sleep time like you’d think.  Don’t feel left out because you didn’t get an invitation to come visit; I quickly decided I was too crabby to see anyone.  There was a huge difference between surgery recovery and the parties we had when I was going through chemo.  One tradition did continue of course: the celebrity guest.  My cousins sprung for a life size cutout of Elvis which my mom and sister snuck past two big fans of the King sitting in the waiting room; I’m surprised they didn’t get jumped.  Elvis sat at the end of my bed for almost a full day until I realized I would never get used to waking up from a nap and not being surprised at the guy in the gold suit standing at the edge of my bed.  We moved him to another area of my room so he could sneak up on the nurses instead.  And the UW Medical Center has a HUGE campaign everywhere about hand washing.  They have pictures of employees all over the place with captions like “My name is Thomas.  Ask me if I’ve washed my hands”.  What an awkward question to ask someone who’s spent more money on their education than I spent on my house.  So it only took a day or two before Elvis was holding a sign that said “Ask me if I’ve washed my hands”.

My new scar:  Those surgeons cut me from boobs to pubes.  I have a giant incision right up the middle of my stomach, and I can’t figure out whether this will work in my favor or against my dreams of getting THUG LIFE tattooed over my belly button.  A day or two after surgery, Batman was on his rounds with two residents and they decided it was time to take the dressing off.  These two residents stood over me and asked if I wanted them to go fast or slow, and apparently a second’s hesitation is the equivalent to “fast”.  At this point I wasn’t sure if I was at the UW or Guantanamo Bay.  All of the nurses and doctors who checked out my incision remarked how great it looked, and as gruesome and long as it is, I have to agree.  I won’t be modeling bikinis anytime soon, but it does look like it will heal into a somewhat modest scar for the location.  I had my follow up appointment with Batman today and he removed the staples.  I had been wondering how this would go, and it wasn’t bad at all.  If anything I felt a teeny pinch with a few of them, but I was surprised at how little I felt the removal of my Frankenstomach.  Also, my interactions with Batman after surgery were lovely; he was no longer the stern surgeon I’d met with back in August.  For my visit today I would describe him as downright huggable.  He’s still Batman though.

And pain?  Not bad!  I was getting Dilaudid (the same drug that killed Michael Jackson) through my epidural and had that magic button in case I needed a little boost.  I weaned myself off the magic button by about Day 4.  Despite having a lovely bottle of liquid Percocet, upon leaving the hospital I was only using Tylenol for pain.  If you were ever to see me on an episode of Intervention it would probably be for painkillers over anything else, so I’m rather proud of this achievement.

Overall, the big surgery wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, yet it still took a lot out of me.  Even sending a text message seemed exhausting most days, so there are a lot of people out there that I owe emails or texts.  I hope nobody’s holding their breath considering how long it took me to get this post up, but I will say that the lure of  court shows and Maury’s paternity tests have lost their lure, and I should be catching up on all my correspondence soon.

Kiss My Ass Goodbye

Okay, my colon.  Part of it.  Surgery is bright and early tomorrow morning; I have to be at UW Medical Center at 5:15 AM.  Yikes.

And there’s a slight change I found out about last Friday.  I was actually going to need two surgeries for my liver; three total, but my oncologist called and said we’d be doing one of the liver surgeries at the same time as my colon surgery.  ”Two for the price of one!  Well, not really” he said.  I know it makes a ton of sense and will save me some recovery time but it took a day or two to get adjusted.  And Batman very well could do the liver surgery but again, we’re bringing in THE guy for livers.

I also learned a hard lesson this week:  If you ask enough people the same question, eventually someone will tell you yes.  Back when I first met with Batman, it had been about 3 weeks since my colonoscopy, and he wanted to operate within days.  Because it was so close to my colonoscopy he didn’t want me to go through the bowel prep again.  For those who have never had a colonoscopy, the bowel prep is what everyone grumbles about, and right at the top of their list of gripes is the liquid you drink to get your bowels going.  It’s miserable going in, but really not bad at all on the way out.  And you have a giant jug of it to conquer.  Now that my surgery is taking place three and a half months after my last prep I was wondering if I’d need to do it again.  It’s sad to think poor Batman would have to perform the surgery while sifting through partially digested potato skins or whatever.  So I started asking everyone I could if I should do the bowel prep.  I asked my oncologist, I stalked Batman’s nurse, I asked anyone I talked to at UW.  Everyone seemed to agree that I should at least stop eating at midnight the evening before surgery.    Poor Batman!  But yesterday afternoon his nurse called and said yes indeed, she was calling in a prescription for Pee Out Of My Butt Juice.  So here I am, drinking salty water, waiting to spend some quality time with the toilet.  I’m trying to psych myself out by drinking it out of a wine glass.  Oh please hurry up and work.

Surgery should start around an hour and a half after I check in tomorrow, and it’s expected to last 4 hours.  I’ll probably spend the first night in ICU, then I’ll get a private room for the rest of my week’s stay.  It’s my first major surgery and I’m a bit nervous about getting intubated and having an epidural, but I hear it’s not that bad.  I was worried about the recovery process and giving up my independence for awhile but I’m pretty calm right now.  I’m sure it will go fast.  Perhaps my dad or my sister will use the comment section on this post for updates.   Hint hint.

My goal is to write at least one morphine fueled blog post when I’m in the hospital.  I hope it’s entertainingly incoherent.

 

What crawled up MY ass and died?

CANCER!!!

Seventy percent reduction in the primary tumor.  The liver tumors have all shrunk as well although definitely not as significantly.  My oncologist wasn’t worried about that at all though, we’ll get those later.  And as he was going through my 3 pages of blood work he kept saying “those numbers look good… love that right there… that’s good too”.  I don’t remember what he was looking at specifically though, but whatever it was, I had a happy oncologist.

I’m also going to meet with my liver surgeon this next week, or before my big surgery next Friday.  Dr Whiting also wants me to work a little less this week to rest up but he thinks I’ll have no problems recovering, physically.  Okay!

I know I’ve said I haven’t been drinking since I was diagnosed, but I’m pretty sure there’s a glass of champagne in my future tonight.

 

This Is Your Brain On Chemo

I only have one complaint about this last chemo cycle, which is pretty good.  Usually my guts are the big issue, but they’ve kept themselves in check quite well this time.  I started acupuncture recently in an effort to help with the queasiness mostly.  I did acupuncture a few years ago in a group setting and loved it.  It was so relaxing I konked out on a recliner only to be woken up by my own snoring and some guy across the room glaring at me.  This time around I have my own room to snore away, but I’ve been a bit frustrated because I haven’t felt the same overwhelming relaxation and I haven’t fallen asleep in any of my sessions yet.  I turned a corner this week when I realized that I also haven’t nearly been as nauseous as past treatments, and while I could credit the pills I’ve been taking all along, I think this voodoo deserves some credit too.

As I mentioned though, I’m not completely off the hook.  Side effects were supposed to get worse as treatment went on, and everything seems to have piled on in the Chemobrain department.  Oof, it’s been quite a week.  I asked my boss a question yesterday and forgot most of her answer by the time I got back to my desk.   I went back later with pen and paper, told her I was severely embarrassed but I had forgotten everything.  With a huge, graceful smile she said “You brought something to take notes with this time.  Clearly you learned something from it, so let’s not worry about what you forgot”.  WHEW.  Today I had to give a pretty easy talk to some new hires and it was a disaster.   I totally blanked on what projects I work on.  Every time I spaced something I wanted to yell “I have cancer!  I’m not really this dumb!”  I won’t beat myself up about it, I know I can do better, and I doubt anyone in the audience cares or even remembers.

Tonight I misinterpreted a website posting about a colon cancer support group.  They meet the second Wednesday of the month, and are changing locations to the SCCA House, temporary housing for families from out of town/state who are here for cancer treatment.  Anita had told me they were on hold last month but I figured we were ready to rock this month and left her a message.  I called the receptionists at both SCCA and the SCCA House who both told me there was no meeting tonight, so I decided to just show up at SCCA House.  Another receptionist told me the group was meeting there next month, but not this month.  So with all that proof that there was no meeting, I did what anyone else would do: I retreated to my car for a Cancer Stakeout.  I was just nonchalantly sitting in my car looking at Facebook for half an hour, but sizing up everyone who entered the building to see if they looked like regular patients, or people who might be going to talk about cancer in their butts.   When I finally get around to writing that sitcom about being a detective, I’ll combine this storyline with one where I bring my mom to work, since this seems like something she might do.

The winner in all of this though was Monday night.  Dinner at my sister’s house.  Not once, not twice.  Three times I caught myself blowing on the salad to “cool it down”.  It was a cold salad!  I’m glad I have several weeks off of the chemo to hopefully regain my senses, otherwise I may need to look into hiring a handler.  Someone qualified to use a Tazer or an electric cattle prod.

And instead of a butt joke I’ll share the text message that made my day this week: “There’s this Drs show on at the airport bar, and these glib, handsome doctors are talking about how great life is without a colon.  Just great!”  Well, I’ll find out soon enough.

Last Oil Change! (…for a little while)

Tuesday marked the last chemo cycle of my first round.  I have a month off to go crazy and get healthy for surgery on November 5th, then I will most likely be down for the count for about a month recovering.  Then more chemo in December!  Hooray!  …right?

As usual, the day started with a blood draw, and the waiting room was PACKED.  The girl who drew my blood recommended I go to Hawaii to recover from my surgery next month.  I doubt I will, but doesn’t her recommendation count as medical advice?  Instead of meeting with Sam this time I met with the RN, Charlie, who is an absolute sweetheart.  After my blood counts were all the way at 16 point something last time, I have dipped to 1.8, or “right on the ropes” of another snow day.  It’s crazy to think I could drop so fast, but hey, another painful Neulasta shot will clear that right up.  Charlie and I talked for a long time; I felt bad for cutting into his lunch break but he had a lot of reassuring things to say about my upcoming surgery.  One of his recommendations was to get a lot of protein in, which I figured might be a challenge.  I eat meat when I go out, but when I cook for myself it’s a mostly vegetarian diet.  He checked my protein levels though and much to my surprise I’m in a good range.  He also poked around my belly to see how things were going.  This brought me some closure; lately I had been thinking about similar exams from my General Practitioner and the Gastroenterologist before I found out I had cancer.  If this tumor is fist sized, shouldn’t they have felt something that made them speed up the testing or something?  Charlie said he couldn’t feel the tumor at all, so I forgave the previous doctors.  Yes, the tumor MUST have shrank some due to the chemo, but I think it’s also one of those sneaky tumors that has been hiding from such exams this whole time.  Jerk.

Then it was up to Infusion.  The good news this time was that Judy was my nurse.  The bad news was, IT WAS NOT JUDY.  I was somehow assigned to a different nurse named Judy.  She was nice, and competent, and followed all of Judy’s orders from previous treatments, but it just wasn’t the same.  Good Judy came over eventually and said she was mad at the scheduler who screwed up.  She made sure I was taken care of and assured me we’d be reunited in December.  As she was leaving she told me she loved me.  I feel so lucky to be at SCCA.

 

I had the most festive chemo pole in the whole cancer ward.

 

As usual, my guests and I were up to no good, in a fun way.  At one point I was in the bathroom (I do that a lot on Infusion days) and could hear my friends laughing from my room.  The Nurse Bait was out of control this time; we had four kinds of cookies for everyone.  FANCY cookies.  My mom and sister have gone above and beyond with the baking this round.  I hope they know how much chemo I’m in store for here, they certainly aren’t pacing themselves.  And celebrity guests were right in line with a grand finale.  We learned that Kinko’s can make a really fabulous, sturdy David Hasselhoff for a very reasonable price, and we also got a lesson in British pop culture via a whole calendar of Cliff Richard.  Apparently he’s the UK’s answer to The Hoff, but while the Hoff will pose for calendar shots in the buff with real live Shar Pei puppies, Cliff poses with fake parrots.

I have to say, my chemo experience was never a horror story.  In the last two months I’ve thrown up a few times, but I’ve never spent a day hugging the toilet bowl like they love to portray in the movies.  I don’t really feel too bad on the three days I’m plugged in.  I do feel pretty lethargic, stupid, queasy and generally not awesome for the week following, but my doctors have been really good about prescribing things to help with that.  My purse is FULL of prescription bottles, it’s a borderline depressing sight.  There are a lot of things to like about my infusion days.  SCCA has created a wonderful environment for its patients; I have no idea where they find their employees, but everyone is always happy and helpful.  They have people wandering the waiting rooms with juice, water, and crackers, or offering hand massages.  People turn down the hand massages a lot, I haven’t figured out why, but I’m one of them.

Most importantly I am grateful to everyone who came and turned my treatments into a Party In The SCCA.  My tiny room was always full of friends who took time off work to come hang out.  There were a few times I thought I was going to be productive and write some overdue thank you notes, but never could because someone was always dropping in, so if I owe you a thank you note, let’s blame my supportive friends for my tardiness.  Really, I had long days in those rooms; at least 5 hours at a time, and over the course of this entire first round, I was only alone for 5 minutes.  I am overwhelmed by the amount of time you guys took out of your days, and humbled by the “where else would I be” attitudes you showed up with.  For those who didn’t make it this round, don’t worry, I’ve got a lot more cancer I’ll save for you.

Let’s Talk Turkeyburgers

I pity the friend who flew all the way in from Germany to eat lunch with my chemo riddled self.  Thankfully he was here for other reasons; I would feel terrible if anyone had crossed the street much less the ocean to listen to the disjointed thoughts spilling out of my mouth today.

I shared with him my newfound love of the single life, for one particular reason.  Two months ago when I met with Batman, he told me it could be a matter of weeks, possibly even days before the tumor blocked my colon completely.  I don’t want to freak anyone out unnecessarily; remember that surgeons love to cut, but it was alarming to hear.   If the chemo didn’t start working in one or two cycles, I could lose the ability to pass gas or even poop at all.  This is when farting got personal.  At first I pretended farts were the tumor hissing at me and after that first chemo cycle it didn’t take much pretending.  Some of those farts were downright bitchy-that tumor was pissed off.  As the chemo started working and my tumor started shrinking, I started ripping em like a giddy 6 year old boy when I was alone.  I told my friend how glad I was there was nobody around to pull my finger so I could celebrate these noisy, stinky milestones and he thought a good boyfriend would celebrate that too.  I still think there’s a fine line between supportive and trashy.

Was I really talking about my farts at lunch?  And how excited I am about my farts, while at lunch?  Ugh.  I was so exhausted that I felt like I was just watching every bad idea I’ve ever had fall out of my mouth and land on the table, it was comically terrible.  But while I was cringing at just about everything I watched myself say, at the same time it felt comfy and okay to talk about.  I guess it’s the really good friends who will let you verbally rip one and won’t bat an eye.

Cycle 4

I’m way overdue on an update.  I’ll pin this on my new habit of never turning on my computer on the weekends, and a sudden change in one of my eyes.  It’s from the chemo; it’s always from the chemo, but my left eye seems to have gone blurry overnight and it’s difficult to see objects up close.  Perhaps I’m due for a pirate patch.

Cycle 4 started with a late blood test, close to noon.  The nurses take my blood samples with a special needle for my port, then leave me accessed, meaning the needle stays in for a couple of hours until I make it up to Infusion, and stays in for the two days I take chemo at home.  This nurse was very ambitious, she put all kinds of dressings all around the access point on my port.  I think spackling paste may have been used.

Instead of meeting with Sam this week I met with his RN Charlie.  That was some Snow Day; my new blood test results were laughable by everyone who viewed them.  Let me back up and explain a little.  The first shot I was given at SCCA when I was disconnected was called Neulasta-I incorrectly called it Neupogen.  They both do the same thing, but Neulasta is a more powerful one time shot, and the Neupogen is its little brother, packaged up to take home.  Initially my chart had orders that if my blood count went below 5,000 I had to get a Neulasta shot when I went in to get my pump taken off.  That didn’t really work; I still failed my blood test.  Sam adjusted orders so that I’d get Neulasta when my counts went below 10,000.  So with my snow day, I took the Neupogen home and that got my blood count up to laughable levels.  Really, the nurses would look at it and laugh.  I was at 16,000.  Definitely okay.

If you let kids you babysit for stay up past their bedtime, they might come visit you in a cancer ward later.

I had another meeting with the nutritionist and got some good news-I am allowed to eat fiber again!  Well, not too much, but good grief, I was missing good food.  Judy was once again a doll.  The Nurse Bait went over bigtime yet again; nurses kept interrupting to thank me for the cookies.  Even the nutritionist loved them.  Good work you Nurse Bait fairies!  Word is getting out on the floor that I have a celebrity entourage, so between that and the cookies I don’t suffer waiting for someone to check on me.  And now guests are showing up with their own celebrities, which I love.  This week’s guests were fierce.  Dolph Lundgren was dishing out karate kicks at cancer, and apparently I was trying to eat Chuck Norris in this picture.  Rawr.

Because I checked in so late I didn’t get out of SCCA until after 9:00.  I think someone kindly informed me I was the last patient there.  Getting unhooked two days later was the same thing; couldn’t check in until 9 PM.  I was a little concerned I would get there after everyone went home and would have to cart that pump around for another night; this time with bonus “I’m done!” beeping.  Thankfully there were plenty of nurses still there, including my first nurse, Amy. She admitted a coworker had said someone was coming in for a disconnect and she had tried to look busy, but once she saw it was me we had a fun reunion.  We sat and talked and eventually she kicked the other nurse out who was trying to remove the duct tape and cement around my port so she could finish the job and we could keep talking.

SECURITY!! This guy's no celebrity.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but with one cycle left in this round, things seem to be much better.  At least for me, chemo itself wasn’t brutal, it was all the side effects.  And there are tons of pills for all these side effects, so treatment was more about figuring those out than dealing with chemo itself.  I actually feel pretty good for those three days I’m plugged in.  I do still tire pretty easily but I love naps, so this might be my favorite side effect.   I bet that stupid tumor feels differently about all of this.